The barge proceeded fifty miles up the river without incident, but presently the stream became too shallow to admit of its going farther. A canoe was secured from a village in the vicinity, with two Indians to paddle it. In this Smith decided to push on to the head of the river, taking with him two of his men. The remainder he left in the barge, instructing them not to go on shore and to keep a sharp lookout until his return. Twenty miles onward the canoe travelled when an obstruction of fallen trees brought the party to a halt. It seemed probable that the source of the stream could be but a few miles beyond and Smith determined to seek it on foot accompanied by one of the Indians. The other and the two Englishmen he left in the canoe, cautioning them to keep their matches burning, and at the first sign of danger to fire an alarm. Smith had hardly gone a mile through the forest when he was suddenly startled by a shrill war-whoop. He could see no one and he had not been warned of danger by his men as agreed. He concluded, therefore, that they had been surprised and killed with the connivance of the guide. Even as the thought flashed through his mind he grappled with the Indian beside him and wrenched the bow from his grasp. It was done in an instant, and as quickly he bound an arm of the savage to his own with one of his garters. He had not completed the act when an arrow half spent struck him on the thigh and a moment later he discerned two dusky figures drawing their bows upon him. These disappeared at the discharge of his pistol, and he was congratulating himself on having routed them so easily when two hundred warriors, hideous in paint and feathers, rose from the ground in front of him. At their head was Opechancanough, the chief of the Pamaunkes.