urrender the armies of England to the "rebel"
republic, she with her companions entertained the English captain with a
gay Indian dance full of noise and frolic.

Soon after this second interview, Ma-ta-oka's wish to see the white
man's village was gratified. For in that same autumn of 1608 she came
with Ra-bun-ta to Jamestown. She sought out the captain who was then
"president" of the colony, and "entreated the libertie" of certain of
her tribesmen who had been "detained,"--in other words, treacherously
made prisoners by the settlers because of some fear of an Indian plot
against them.

Smith was a shrewd enough man to know when to bluster and when to be
friendly. He released the Indian captives at Ma-ta-oka's wish--well
knowing that the little girl had been duly "coached" by her wily old
father, but feeling that even the friendship of a child may often be of
value to people in a strange land.

The result of this visit to Jamestown was the frequent presence in the
town of the chieftain's daughter. She would come, sometimes, with
her brother, Nan-ta-qua-us, sometimes with the runner, Ra-bun-ta, and
sometimes with certain of her girl followers. For even little Indian
girls had their "dearest friends," quite as much as have our own
clannish young school-girls of to-day.

I am afraid, however, that this twelve-year-old, Ma-ta-oka, fully
deserved, even when she should have been on her good behavior among the
white people, the nickname of "little tomboy" (po-ca-hun-tas) that
her father had given her,--for we have the assurance of sedate Master
William Strachey, secretary of the colony, that "the before remembered
Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter, sometimes resorting to our fort, of
the age then of eleven or twelve years, did get the boyes forth with
her into the market-place, and make them wheele, falling on their hand
turning their heeles upward, whome she would followe and wheele so
herself, all the fort over." From which it would appear that she could
easily "stunt" the English boys at "making cart-wheels."

But there came a time very soon when she came into Jamestown for other
purpose than turning somersaults.

The Indians soon learned to distrust the white men, because of the
unfriendly and selfish dealings, of the new-comers, their tyranny, their
haughty disregard of the Indians' wishes and desires, and their impudent
meddling alike with chieftains and with tribesmen. Discontent grew
into hatred and, led on by ce