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One day Wansutis said to him: "Son, it is time now that thou shouldst take a squaw into thy wigwam. My hands grow weak and a young squaw will serve thee more swiftly than I. Look about thee, my son, and choose." Claw-of-the-Eagle had been thinking many moons that the time had come to bring home a squaw, but he had no need to look about and choose.
Wansutis, who was now crouched down looking at the heart of the fire, began to chant as if alone: "Wansutis's son died in battle. No stronger, fiercer brave was there in all the thirty tribes, and Wansutis's lodge was empty and there was none to hunt for her, to slay deer that she might feed upon fresh meat.
Now that she had her child safe again, Pocahontas's kind heart began to speak: "Wansutis, thou knowest I cannot let thee have my son; but if thou wilt I will pray my father to give thee the next young brave he captures that thou mayst no longer be lonely."
She saw that he had regained his senses, so she put her fingers to her lips. She did not want Wansutis to know that she had been watched. Already the touch of the wrinkled fingers was as tender as that of a mother, and Pocahontas felt sure that she would resent any intrusion. Now that she had seen all there was to see, she stole away.
He feared now that Pocahontas would not be able to steal unobserved back to her place beside Cleopatra and that she would be scolded. They went with Wansutis to her wigwam and Pocahontas let fall her bundle. Nautauquas took out his knife and cut off a hind quarter of the deer and laid it on the squaw's hearth.
"Wansutis," began Pocahontas, standing in the sunshine of the entrance, to the old woman who sat smoking in the darkest part of the lodge, "thou hast the knowledge of all the herbs of the fields and of the forests, those that harm and those that help. Is it not so?"
She watched the guards lay the unconscious boy gently down and Wansutis as she knelt and blew upon the embers under the smoke hole till they blazed up. Then she saw the old woman take a pot of water and heat it and throw herbs into it. With this infusion she bathed the wounds, anointing them afterwards with oil made from acorns.
Had he not proved his valor on the warpath and under torture while they were only gaming with plumpits? They followed him about, eager to do his bidding, each trying to outdo his comrades in sports when his eye was on them. And all the elders had good words to say about Claw-of-the-Eagle, and Wansutis was so proud that she now often forgot to speak evil medicine.
Without an instant's doubt, Pocahontas sprang into the blackness and in a few moments came back with the baby in her arms. She squatted down by the fire, and felt it over feverishly until she had convinced herself that it was unharmed. Wansutis now rose. "Farewell, Princess," she said. "Wansutis will now be returning to her lodge."
"Thinketh thou to ward off old age by some of my potions made from these roots I carry here, a bundle too heavy for an ancient crone like me to bear on her back? Thou shalt have none of them." At these words Pocahontas's manner changed. Stooping, she picked up the bundle and pressed it into the net that lay on the ground and swung it on to her strong shoulders. "Come, Wansutis," she cried.
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