gh mass now!--without boat or raft or straw to cling to, made the
favorite accusation. Upon this count, early in September, Wingfield
was deposed from the presidency. Ratcliffe succeeded him, but presently
Ratcliffe fared no better. One councilor fared worse, for George
Kendall, accused of plotting mutiny and pinnace stealing, was given
trial, found guilty, and shot.

"The eighteenth day [of September] died one Ellis Kinistone.... The same
day at night died one Richard Simmons. The nineteenth day there died one
Thomas Mouton...."

What went on, in Virginia, in the Indian mind, can only be conjectured.
As little as the white mind could it foresee the trend of events or
the ultimate outcome of present policy. There was exhibited a see-saw
policy, or perhaps no policy at all, only the emotional fit as it came
hot or cold. The friendly act trod upon the hostile, the hostile upon
the friendly. Through the miserable summer the hostile was uppermost;
then with the autumn appeared the friendly mood, fortunate enough for
"the most feeble wretches" at Jamestown. Indians came laden with maize
and venison. The heat was a thing of the past; cool and bracing weather
appeared; and with it great flocks of wild fowl, "swans, geese, ducks
and cranes." Famine vanished, sickness decreased. The dead were dead.
Of the hundred and four persons left by Newport less than fifty had
survived. But these may be thought of as indeed seasoned.

CHAPTER IV. JOHN SMITH

With the cool weather began active exploration, the object in chief the
gathering from the Indians, by persuasion or trade or show of force,
food for the approaching winter. Here John Smith steps forward as
leader.

There begins a string of adventures of that hardy and romantic
individual. How much in Smith's extant narrations is exaggeration,
how much is dispossession of others' merits in favor of his own, it is
difficult now to say.* A thing that one little likes is his persistent
depreciation of his fellows. There is but one Noble Adventurer, and that
one is John Smith. On the other hand evident enough are his courage and
initiative, his ingenuity, and his rough, practical sagacity. Let us
take him at something less than his own valuation, but yet as valuable
enough. As for his adventures, real or fictitious, one may see in
them epitomized the adventures of many and many men, English,
French, Spanish, Dutch, blazers of the material path for the present
civilization.