Claw-of-the-Eagle, though he would have bitten his tongue off rather than acknowledge his curiosity, was most eager to learn what had brought the daughter of Powhatan to his adopted mother's lodge. He entered it with Pocahontas and pretended to be busying himself with stringing his bows in order to have an excuse for staying.
"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?"
The wrinkled squaw looked up, a drawn smile upon her lips, and said:
"And so Princess Pocahontas comes to old Wansutis for a love potion."
"Nay," cried the girl angrily, coming closer, "not so; I desire of thee something quite different—herbs that will make a man forget."
"The same herb for both," snapped the squaw; "for whom wilt thou brew it, for thine adopted son, thou who art no squaw and too young to have a son? I have no such herb, maiden, and if I had, thinkest thou I had not given it to Claw-of-the-Eagle to drink. Speak to her, son, and tell her if a man ever forgets."
Pocahontas turned a questioning glance on him and the young brave answered it:
"My thoughts are great and speedy travellers, Pocahontas; they take long journeys backwards to my father's and mother's people. They wander among old trails in the forests and they meet old friends by the side of burned-out campfires. 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?" Somehow, captivity and the thought of captives had suddenly become of extreme interest to the girl.
"I know not, Princess," answered the boy after pondering a moment, "yet had not my father and mother been dead I feel certain I should have sought to escape to them, even had thy father set all his guards about the village. But they were no more, and our wigwam afar off was empty; and so my heart finds rest in a new home and I gladly obey a new mother."