"Let us hasten," cried Pocahontas. "I wonder what hath befallen,
Nautauquas."





[Illustration: Decorative]


CHAPTER IV

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET


"What hath happened?" Nautauquas called out to Parahunt, his brother,
when he caught up with him hastening to the river.

"Word hath come by a runner that one of the tribes from the Chickahominy
villages hath fallen upon a party of Massawomekes and hath vanquished
them. Even now they are approaching with the prisoners."

In passing the front of his wigwam Nautauquas threw down the carcass of
the deer, then ran on to join the ever increasing crowd of braves and
children on the river bank.

Pocahontas too had mingled in the throng, and so Cleopatra and the
squaws in the lodge had not noticed her absence, thinking when they saw
her that she had been roused from sleep in the early dawn as they had
been.