But it is necessary to return to Weston’s colony. We left it face to face with famine, deserted by its leader, and in terror of the savages; in the wish to propitiate whom the starving, shivering outcasts had just hung one of their own number in front of their palisade. Even this, however, did not appease the Indians, who were now thoroughly restless and had begun to conspire together all along the coast for the simultaneous destruction of both the infant settlements. It was just one year since the Virginia massacre, and that tragedy seemed about to be re-enacted in New England. Intimations of the impending danger reached the Plymouth and the Weymouth people at about the same time; coming to the former through a friendly hint from Massasoit, and to the latter from the talk of an Indian woman. The Indians were now watching the Wessagusset settlement very closely. In spite of their terror, the settlers, however, lived on in a reckless way, mixing freely with the savages and taking no precautions against surprise.[21] But one at least of their number was thoroughly alarmed, and had resolved to make his escape to Plymouth. This was Phinehas Pratt, one of the seven who had come on in the shallop during the previous May in advance of the body of the enterprise. The journey he now proposed to himself was both difficult and dangerous. It was March, and he was insufficiently clad and weak for want of food; he did not know the way, nor did he even have a compass. The Indians, probably in furtherance of their half-matured conspiracy, had gradually moved their wigwams closer and closer to the settlement. Pratt’s first object was to steal away unobserved by them. Very early one morning, therefore, preparing a small pack, he took a hoe in his hand and left the settlement as if he were in search of nuts, or about to dig for shell-fish. He went directly towards that end of the swamp nearest the wigwams. Getting close to them he pretended to be busy digging, until he had satisfied himself that he was unobserved; then he suddenly plunged into the thicket and began to make his way as rapidly as he could in a southerly direction. The sky was overcast; the ground also was in many places covered with snow, which greatly alarmed him, as it seemed likely to afford an almost certain trail in case of pursuit. Fortunately for him he at once lost his way, or he must soon have been overtaken. He hurried along, however, as fast as he could, until late in the afternoon, when the sun appeared sufficiently to give him some indication of his course. He at length came to the North River, which he found both deep and cold; he succeeded in fording it, however, and, as night began to fall, found himself too weary to go further, weak from cold and hunger and yet afraid to light a fire. Finally he came to a deep hollow in which were many fallen trees; here he stopped, lit a fire and rested, listening to the howling of the wolves in the woods around him.