Soon they came upon some mounds, out of which they dug bows and arrows and other utensils. These, however, they replaced, because they believed the mounds to be Indian graves. In a rude and deserted house they also found an iron kettle. Digging into still another mound these home-hunters were delighted to discover large baskets filled with ears of Indian corn--red, white, and yellow. As they were sorely in need of food after their long voyage, they took with them some of the corn, for which they were careful to pay the Indians later.
An amusing incident occurred on this otherwise serious journey. Before they got back to the Mayflower, William Bradford, who afterward became the second governor of the Plymouth Colony, met with an accident that must have caused even the stern Pilgrim soldiers to smile. Picking his way through the underbrush of the wood he stepped unwittingly into a deer-trap, and was suddenly jerked up into the air, where he dangled by one leg until his friends released him, none the worse for the ludicrous occurrence.
After spending more than three weeks in vain efforts to find a place for settlement, a party of ten picked men, including Governor Carver, William Bradford, and Captain Miles Standish, set out on the afternoon of December 16th, in the midst of a driving storm, for another search. It was so cold that the spray, falling upon them, soon covered their clothing with coats of ice, but the voyagers, though suffering terribly, pushed courageously forward.
At the close of the next day, having anchored in a creek, they constructed a barricade, not only as a protection from the bitter weather, but as a means of defence against the Indians. This three-sided barricade, made of boughs, stakes, and logs, was about as high as a man, and was open on the leeward side. Within this shelter they lighted a big fire, which they kept roaring all night long. Then lying down around it, with their feet toward the burning logs, they wrapped their cloaks closely about them and fell asleep beneath the trees and the open sky, one man always keeping guard.
Next morning they were astir early, ready for the stubborn work of another day. Some of them had carried their muskets down to the shore, leaving them there to be put aboard the boat a little later, and were returning to breakfast when the shout "Indians!" followed by a shower of arrows, greeted them. The woods seemed full of red warriors, whose blood-curdling war-whoops must have struck fear to the hearts of the small band of explorers. However, the white men bravely stood their ground, and with cool arm and steady hand so terrified the savages that they soon took to their heels.