The maidens flew down the hill while Pocahontas and Cleopatra carried the robe and the basket to their lodge.  Then, a few minutes later, they were rejoined by their companions and all started off laughing as they ran through the woods.

The stream that flowed into the great river below was now still wide with its spring fulness.  A mile away from Werowocomoco it fell over high rocks, then rushing down a gentle incline bubbled over smooth rocky slabs, and made a deep pool below them.

The maidens tossed off their skirts and stood for a moment hesitatingly on the shore.  Mocking-birds sang in the oaks above them, startled by their shrill young voices, and on the bare branches of a sycamore tree that had been killed by a lightning bolt a score of raccoons lay curled up in the sunshine.

Pocahontas was the first to spring into the stream, but her comrades quickly followed her, laughing, pushing, crying out the first chill of the water.  Only Cleopatra remained standing on the shore.

“Come,” called Pocahontas to her; “why dost thou tarry, lazy one?”

“I will not come.  The water is too cold.”

Cleopatra was about to slip on her skirt again when her sister splashed through the stream to her and half pushed, half pulled her into the pool and then to the rocks partly submerged in the water.  There was much screaming and calling, slipping from the rocks into the pool and clambering from the pool back on to the rocks.  The water was now pleasantly warm and the dinner awaiting them was forgotten in the pleasure of the first bath of the season.

Deer-Eye, in trying to pull herself back on the rock, caught hold of Cleopatra’s foot, who slipped on the mossy surface and fell backwards into the water, hitting her head against a sharp edge.  She lost consciousness and sank down into the pool.

Almost before she had disappeared beneath the water Pocahontas had sprung after her, and groping about on the fine smooth sand of the bottom, she caught hold of her sister and brought her to the surface.

Then, with the aid of the terrified maidens, she lifted her up on the bank, the blood flowing freely from a cut on her head.  After vainly trying to staunch the wound with damp moss, Pocahontas commanded: 

“Hasten as though the Iroquois were coming, and cut me some strong branches.”

They obeyed her, hurriedly throwing their skirts about them, and then with their stone knives severed branches and tied them together with deer thongs which they tore from the fringe of their girdles.  On top of these they placed leafy branches and lifted the unconscious Cleopatra on to this improvised stretcher.  In spite of their remonstrances, Pocahontas insisted upon taking one end of it, while the strongest two of her playmates bore the other.

Through the woods they walked, as silent now as they had been noisy before, but Pocahontas thought her heart-beats sounded as loud as the war drums of the Pamunkeys.