Nothing, however, was to be seen, and suddenly the path came to an end in a large clearing covered with the stubble of maize recently gathered, while at the farther side stood several huts formed by a circle of elastic poles, the butts thrust in the ground and the tops bound together leaving a hole through which the smoke was invited to escape, and sometimes did so. The outside was protected by heavy mats of skins or braided of bark, while a more highly decorated one closed the doorway. All were evidently deserted, and after some cautious advances, the captain leaving three men on guard permitted the rest to extinguish their matches and explore the wigwams so curious to European eyes and so familiar to our own. The interior of each showed a cooking hearth or platform framed of sticks and stones, and an assortment of wooden cooking utensils rudely carved. Among these the explorers noticed an English bucket without a bale and a copper kettle, both linking themselves in their minds to the traces of civilization already noted in the palisades and ruined cabin near which the store of corn had been found. Many baskets, both for use and ornament, were found, and sundry boxes curiously wrought with bits of clam shell, such as were used for wampum, and also little crab shells and colored pebbles, seemed to show the presence of women and their proficiency in the fancy work of their own time and taste. Several deer heads, one of them freshly killed, showed that the inmates of the wigwams were not far distant, and in a hollow tree by way of larder was hung the carcass of a deer, so well ripened that even Hopkins pronounced it "fitter for dogs than men." From all these novelties and curiosities the Pilgrims selected a few of the prettier specimens to carry to their comrades on board, formally promising each other, as they had in case of the corn, to make due payment to the owners whenever they should be found, a promise most conscientiously performed at a later day. By the time these matters were fully examined night was falling, and the Pilgrims, strong in their own good intentions and also in their weapons, encamped a short distance from the Indian village, and although keeping diligent guard all night saw nor heard naught to disturb their slumbers. Rousing betimes next morning, their first attention was given to prayers, and their next to making as good a breakfast as possible with the aid of some wild fowl and little birds shot during the previous day's march, and then the "meat and mass" which "hinder no man" thus attended to, they set forth in the direction of the river where they were to be picked up by the shallop. Toward noon this point was nearly reached, in fact the clearing with the European cabin was close at hand, when Billington paused beside a mound carefully laid up with a border of beach stones and rounded high and smooth with sods, over which were laid hewn planks such as composed the cabin.