she had so often sat about the lodge fire when she wished to think hard.

After a long period of absolute silence and motionlessness she rose,
took off her hat, gown and shoes and clothed herself in her Indian
garments. Now she knelt by the cradle and examined the floor carefully,
then the sill of the door and the ground in front of it. Something she
must have discovered, for she sniffed the air eagerly like a hound that
had found the scent. She weighed her decision a moment--should she turn
in the direction of Powhata, where she knew Powhatan was staying, or
should it be in the direction of Werowocomoco? She turned towards the
latter, and stooping every few minutes to examine the ground, proceeded
quickly on her quest.

It was the slightest imprint here and there on the earth of a moccasined
foot which was the clue. Her brothers and sisters came to see her
occasionally; but what purpose could one of them have in stealing her
child? No hostile Indians any longer, thanks to the fear Powhatan's
might and the English guns had spread among them, were ever seen in this
part of the country; so while she hurried on she wondered whence this
Indian kidnapper could have come. That it was an Indian she was certain,
and that he bore the child she knew, because lying on a rock in the
trail she had found a piece of the chain of chinquapins she had amused
herself stringing together to place about little Thomas's neck.

Now that she was on the right trail it did not enter her mind to return
to her husband's men for help or to send a messenger to Jamestown to
fetch him back. She knew well that she was far better fitted than any
white man to follow swiftly and surely the way her child had gone. It
might be, since the thief had several hours' advantage, that it would be
days before she could catch up with him; but if it took years and she
had to journey to the end of the world she would not falter nor turn
back for help.

As she travelled through the forest in the quick step that was almost a
trot, the polish of her English life fell away from her as the leaves
fell from the trees above her. She forgot the happenings of the two
years since she had been the "Lady Rebecca," forgot her husband; and her
baby was no longer the heir of the Rolfes about to be taken across the
sea to be shown to his kinsmen; he was her papoose, and as she ran she
called out to him all the pet names the Indian mothers loved. When she
thought that he might be cr