ith thine own hands--thou that carest not for squaw's
needles--a robe of raccoon skin in quills and bits of precious shells."

Pocahontas laughed.

"That is no punishment. 'Tis a strange thing, but when I do things I
like not for those I love, why, then I pleasure in doing them. I will
fashion for thee such a robe as thou hast never seen. Oh! I know how
beautiful it will be. I will make new patterns such as no squaw hath
ever dreamed of before. But thou wilt never be really angry with me.
Father, wilt thou?" she questioned pleadingly. "And if I should at any
time do what displeaseth thee, and thou wearest this robe I make thee,
then let it be a token between us and when I touch it thou wilt forgive
me and grant what I ask of thee?"

And Powhatan promised and smiled on her before he set forth for the
guest lodge.

[Illustration: Decorative]

CHAPTER II

POCAHONTAS AND THE MEDICINE MAN

Some months later on there came a hot day such as sometimes appears in
the early spring. The sun shone with almost as much power as if the corn
were high above the ground in which it had only just been planted with
song and the observance of ancient sacred rites and dances. Little
leaves glistened like fish scales, as they gently unfurled themselves on
the walnut and persimmon trees about Werowocomoco, and in the forest the
ground was covered with flowers. The children tied them together and
tossed them as balls to and fro or wound them into chaplets for their
hair; the old squaws searched among them for certain roots and leaves
for dyes to stain the grass cloth they spun, called pemmenaw.

The boys played hunters, pretending their dogs were wild beasts, but the
bears and wolves did not always understand the parts assigned them and
frolicked and leaped up in delight upon their little masters instead of
turning upon them ferociously. The elder braves lay before their lodges,
many of them idling in the sunshine, others busied themselves making
arrows, fitting handles to stone knives or knotting crab nets. Two
slaves, brought home prisoners by a war party, were hollowing out a
dugout, which the Powhatans used instead of the birchbark canoes
preferred by other tribes. They had cut down an oak tree that, judging
from its rings, must have been an acorn when Powhatan was a papoose,
seventy years before. They had burned out a portion of the outer and
inner bark and were now hacking at the heart of the wood with sharp
obsidian a