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Now is Wansutis old and feeble and hath need of a young son to hunt for her. By our ancient custom this captive is mine." There was an outcry of opposition from the younger braves at being robbed of one of their victims, but the older chiefs on the hill debated for a few moments, and then gave their decision: there was no doubt of the old woman's right to claim the boy.
Pocahontas, though she often willingly allowed those about her to forget her rank, could yet be very conscious of it when she desired. Now it did not please her to be questioned in this manner by the old squaw and she did not answer. "Oh hey," cried Wansutis, "thou wilt not answer me. Thou art proud of thy rank and thy youth.
"What hast thou done with my son?" asked the old woman, without turning her head to look at Pocahontas. "Thy son! Claw-of-the-Eagle? Why! I sent thee word many moons ago, Wansutis, that he was dead." "Hadst thou loved him he had not died." "I loved him as a sister, Wansutis; my fate lay not in my hands.
Yet one day thou wilt be an old squaw like me, without teeth, with weak legs, and life a burden to thee. Then thou wilt not be so proud." Pocahontas stopped and turned around again. "Nay, I will not grow old. I will not let the day come when life shall be a burden. Thou canst not read the future, Wansutis. I shall always be as fleet as now."
"But thou art of us now," she rejoined. "Yes, I am son of old Wansutis and I am loyal to my new mother and to my new people. And yet. Princess, I send each day a message by the sun to the lodge where they mourn Claw-of-the-Eagle. Perhaps it will reach them." "Tell me of the mountains and of the ways of thy father's people. I long to learn of strange folk and different customs."
Yet, when like weary hunters who have been seeking game all day, they return at night to their lodge, so mine return in gratitude to Wansutis. For she hath not sought to hinder them from travelling old trails, even as she hath not bound my feet to her lodge pole to keep them from straying." "And if she had not left thee free," queried Pocahontas, "what wouldst thou have done?"
But Claw-of-the-Eagle is dead, and we mourn him, thou and I" here she loosened her grasp on the old woman's shoulder, "but my son is alive unless " Here a dreadful possibility made her shake like an aspen. "What hast thou done with my son, Wansutis? What didst thou want with him?"
Pocahontas wondered how Claw-of-the-Eagle liked his new life, and one day when she was running through the forest she came upon him. He had knelt to look through a thicket at a flock of turkeys he meant to shoot into, but his bow lay idle beside his feet, and she saw that his eyes seemed to be looking at something in the distance. "What dost thou behold, son of Wansutis?" she asked.
Then Wansutis saw a prisoner with strong body, though it was yet small, and Wansutis had a new son, a swift hunter, whose face was ruddy by the firelight, whose presence in her lodge made Wansutis's slumbers quiet. And this son wanted a maiden for his squaw and went forth to play upon his pipes before her.
Nautauquas, seeing that she was almost asleep, took hold of her arm and made her lean on him. As they approached the spot where he had first come across her dancing, they noticed a human figure crouched on the ground. Even in the moonlight, grown dimmer as dawn approached, he could see that it was an old squaw. Pocahontas recognized old Wansutis, a gatherer of herbs and roots.
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