When Smith described it to the Indians he could make nothing of the name they gave it, but wrote it down as best he could—­Araughcoune.  Another new kind of creature was of the size of a rabbit, grayish white, with black ears and a tail like a rat.  It would hang by its tail from a tree, until knocked off with a stick, and then curl up with shut eyes and pretend to be dead.  It was excellent eating when roasted with wild yams,—­rather like a very small suckling pig, the colonists later discovered.  For the most part, however, Smith was inclined to think they would have to depend upon their provisions and the corn they could buy from the Indians.

On returning to Jamestown they found that the Indians had been raiding the settlement, the colonists at the time being all at work and taken completely by surprise.  Seventeen men had been wounded, and a boy killed.  After this, the men were drilled each day, the guns were unpacked and a palisade was begun.

Newport was in a hurry to return to England, and Wingfield now suggested that Smith, who was still supposed to be under arrest, should go with him and save any further trouble.  This did not suit Smith at all.  He demanded an open trial, got it, and was triumphantly cleared of all charges.

Of the privation, dissensions and sickness which followed Newport’s departure, the bad water, rotten food, constant trouble with savages, and the unreasonable demands of the directors of the London Company, all historians have told.  One story, which Smith was wont to tell with keen relish, deals with the instructions of the Company that the Indian chief, “King Powhatan,” should be crowned with all due ceremony, just at a time of year when every hand in the colony was needed for attending to the crops.  Smith and Newport had just come to a reasonable understanding with that astute savage, by which he treated them with real respect; and the attention paid him by his “brother James,” as he proceeded to call the King of England, rather turned his head.  He liked the red cloak sent him, but had no idea what a crown meant.  The raccoon skin mantle which he removed when robed in the royal crimson was sent to England and is now in a museum at Oxford.

After some years of strenuous toil and adventure John Smith went back to London.  An explosion of powder, whether accidental or intentional was never known, wounded him seriously just before he left Jamestown, and he did not recover from it for some time.

“And what is in your mind to do next, Captain?” asked Master William Simons the geographer when they had finished, between them, the new map of Virginia.  Smith’s eyes twinkled as he snapped the cover on his inkhorn.

“Why, ’t is hard for an old rover like me to lie abed when there’s man’s work to be done.  You know, the London Company holds only the southern division of the King’s Patent for Virginia; the north’s given to Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth.  And that’s never been settled yet.”