"Dost thou hear that, Pocahontas?" queried Cleopatra, who had peeped out. "It is Claw-of-the-Eagle who pipes for thee. Go forth, Sister, and make glad his heart, for there is none of our braves who can compare with him."
"I will not be his squaw. Go thou thyself if he pleaseth thee so," and Pocahontas would not stir from her tent that evening, though the gentle piping continued until the moon rose.
Yet Claw-of-the-Eagle did not despair. Not only had he won fame as a fighter but as a successful hunter as well. Never did he come back to Wansutis's lodge empty-handed. Though the deer he pursued be never so swift, or the quail never so wary, he always tracked down his quarry. And he meant to succeed in his wooing.
So even when Pocahontas left Werowocomoco to visit her kinsfolk, the Patowomekes, he bided his time and spent his days building a new lodge nearby that of Wansutis, that it might be in readiness for the day when he should bring his squaw to light their first fire beneath the opening under the sky.
Meanwhile affairs in Jamestown had been going from bad to worse. Famine had become an almost permanent visitor there. Sir Thomas Gale had not yet arrived from England and no one was there to govern the Colony with the firm hand of John Smith. At length, however, it was decided in the Council that Captain Argall should set forth towards the Patowomekes tribe and bargain with them for grain.
Japezaws, the chief, received him in a friendly manner.
"Yes, we will sell to thee corn as I sold it to thy great Captain when he first came among us. What news hast thou of him? Will he come again to us? He was a great brave."
Captain Argall answered:
"We have no word from him. Perchance he hath succumbed of his wound;" and then, because he was jealous of Smith's fame among the savages, he added, "England hath so many great braves that we waste little thought on those that are gone. Jamestown hath all but forgot him already."
"There is one amongst us who forgets him not," Japezaws pointed to the valley behind him, "one there is who hath him and his deeds ever on the tongue."