To make matters worse Captain Gosnold after a few months sickened and died.
7. THE AMBUSH
Fortunately for the good of the colonists, who had completely lost heart and were anxious to give up the undertaking, Captain John Smith soon became their leader. Ever active and enterprising, he inspired the others by his example. He vigorously put things in order, and set the idlers to work to complete their half-finished houses, and to build the forts to protect them from the Indians, who now showed a warlike spirit.
Next he went off to explore the country, and to trade with the natives for corn, for the settlers began to lack food.
On one of these expeditions, when he had gone ashore with an Indian guide, a band of hostile braves, who had been on the watch among the trees, lay in wait to attack him, led by Opekankano, Pocahontas's uncle, while he, unconscious of their presence, gave orders to his men to stay by the boat and keep a sharp lookout for danger.
