It is not remarkable that a man tried by such experiences should, from the first, have taken a prominent part in the enterprise. An unwelcome part in the beginning, for scarcely had the voyage begun, when he was accused of plotting mutiny, arrested and kept in irons until the ships reached Virginia. Late in April, the fleet entered Hampton Roads, and proceeding up the river, which was forthwith named the James, came at last on May 13th, to a low peninsula which seemed suited for a settlement. The next day they set to work building a fort, which they called Fort James, but the settlement soon came to be known as Jamestown. Once the fort was finished, Captain Newport sailed back to England for supplies, and the little settlement was soon in desperate straits for food. Within three months, half of the colonists were in their graves, and bitter feuds arose among the survivors. These were for the most part "gentlemen adventurers," who had accompanied the expedition in the hope of finding gold, and who were wholly unfitted to cope with the conditions in which they found themselves. Of all of them, Smith was by far the most competent, and he did valiant service in trading with the Indians for corn and in conducting a number of expeditions in search of game. It was while on one of these, in December, 1607, that that incident of his career occurred which is all that a great many people know of Captain John Smith. With two companions, he was paddling in a canoe up the Chickahominy, when the party was attacked by Indians. Smith's two companions were killed, and he himself saved his life only by exhibiting his compass and doing other things to astonish and impress the savages. He was finally taken captive to the Powhatan, the ruler of the tribe, and, according to Smith's story, a long debate ensued among the Indians as to his fate. Presently two large stones were laid before the chief, and Smith was dragged to them and his head forced down upon them, but even as one of the warriors raised his club to dash out the captive's brains, the Powhatan's daughter, a child of thirteen named Pocahontas, threw herself upon him, shielding his head with hers, and claimed him for her own, after the Indian custom. Smith was thereupon released, adopted into the tribe, and sent back to Jamestown, where he arrived on the eighth of January, 1608.