For some mysterious reason the Indians ceased to molest them, possibly because their own great harvesting time was at hand, and also the hunting season for more profitable game than a few starved Englishmen. However that may be, they still had their eyes on the intruders, and in order to enter their fort appeared with a present of "Bread, Corne, Fish and Flesh in great plentie." Thus the representatives of the proudest nation on earth suffered the humiliation of becoming pensioners upon the bounty of savages whose country they had invaded, and whose land they had taken without purchase or permission. That there was no true friendship is evident from the fact that John Smith, going down the river in search of supplies, was received at a little town with scornful defiance, to which he replied by a volley of musketry. Following up his advantage, he landed and captured "Okeus," the god of the Powhatans, and bestowed him, with all his stuffing of moss and his copper chains, on board the shallop. The terrified Indians, expecting the sky to fall should Okeus be displeased, immediately ransomed his Sacredness with a good store of venison, wild fowl, and bread. Nothing can exceed the plenty in southern Virginia which swarms in sea and air in the months of October and November. The splendid solan-goose, sora, wild ducks, and wild turkey were found in 1607 in even greater plenty than at the present day. No Thanksgiving dinners had thinned their ranks. The rivers literally swarmed with fish. These were all at the command of the settlers. Of corn for bread there was always scarcity--but surely Newport had not forgotten them! They would boil the roots and gather the persimmons until he came. Then, too, some of the disturbers of the peace had been silenced. Kendall had been tried by a jury and shot; Ratcliffe and Archer had attempted to steal the pinnace, and been foiled by Smith's vigilance and resolution. The helm of affairs had been intrusted to John Smith as Cape Merchant, and he now took the lead. His strong hand was soon recognized in the colony. He set the colonists to work and worked with them, mowing, building, and thatching log cabins,--he himself always performing the heaviest tasks. In a short time shelter was provided for all,--now numbering only forty-five individuals,--and a church was built on the site to which pilgrims now resort as to a Mecca.[28] It was not an imposing structure, but it was a regular church. The chronicles describe it as a log building, covered like the cabins with rafts, sedge, and dirt. Thus the Virginians,--despite their enemies, barbarian and Spanish,--with all their conflicts, illness, and death, had made a good beginning. They had felled trees, built houses, and erected a church, and were saying their prayers in it, like honest people who were bent on doing their duty in that state of life in which it had pleased Heaven to place them. CHAPTER X