Pocahontas suddenly felt at ease again.  Yes, she couldn’t help it, she said to herself, but she was glad the boy had not been beaten to pieces.  As soon as he was carried off the running of the gauntlet began again.  But Pocahontas had now had enough of it.  It would continue, she knew, until all of the captives were dead.  She slid down from the back of the lodge and led by curiosity, set off for Wansutis’s wigwam.  It was at the edge of the village, and before the slow procession of the two guards, the old woman and the boy had arrived, Pocahontas had hidden herself behind a mossy rock, from which hiding place she had a view right into the opening of the wigwam.

She watched the guards lay the unconscious boy gently down and Wansutis as she knelt and blew upon the embers under the smoke hole till they blazed up.  Then she saw the old woman take a pot of water and heat it and throw herbs into it.  With this infusion she bathed the wounds, anointing them afterwards with oil made from acorns.  And while she worked she prayed, invoking Okee to heal her son, to make him strong that he might care for her old age.

Pocahontas was so eager to know whether the boy were alive that she crept closer to the wigwam, and when at last he opened his eyes they looked beyond the hearth and the crouching Wansutis, straight into those of Pocahontas.  She saw that he had regained his senses, so she put her fingers to her lips.  She did not want Wansutis to know that she had been watched.  Already the touch of the wrinkled fingers was as tender as that of a mother, and Pocahontas felt sure that she would resent any intrusion.  Now that she had seen all there was to see, she stole away.

After wandering through the woods to gather honeysuckle to make a wreath, she returned to the village.  There was no longer a crowd in the open space; the captives were all dead and the spectators had gone to their various lodges.  Only a number of boys were playing run the gauntlet, some with willow twigs beating those chosen by lot to run between them.  A girl, imitating old Wansutis, rushed forward and claimed one of the runners for a son.

A few days later when the young Massawomeke lad had recovered there were ceremonies to celebrate his adoption as a member of the Powhatan tribe, of the great nation of the Algonquins.  The other boys of his age looked up to him with envy.  Had he not proved his valor on the warpath and under torture while they were only gaming with plumpits?  They followed him about, eager to do his bidding, each trying to outdo his comrades in sports when his eye was on them.  And all the elders had good words to say about Claw-of-the-Eagle, and Wansutis was so proud that she now often forgot to speak evil medicine.

Pocahontas wondered how Claw-of-the-Eagle liked his new life, and one day when she was running through the forest she came upon him.  He had knelt to look through a thicket at a flock of turkeys he meant to shoot into, but his bow lay idle beside his feet, and she saw that his eyes seemed to be looking at something in the distance.