rtain traitors in the colony, a plot was
arranged for the murder of Captain Smith and the destruction of the
colony.

Three times they attempted to entrap and destroy the "great captain" and
his people, but each time the little Ma-ta-oka, full of friendship and
pity for her new acquaintances, stole cautiously into the town, or found
some means of misleading the conspirators, and thus warned her white
friends of their danger.

One dark winter night in January, 1609, Captain Smith, who had came to
Wero-woco-moco for conference and treaty with Wa-bun-so-na-cook (whom
he always called Pow-ha-tan), sat in the York River woods awaiting some
provisions that the chief had promised him,--for eatables were scarce
that winter in the Virginia colony.

There was a light step beneath which the dry twiggs on the ground
crackled slightly, and the wary captain grasped his matchlock and bade
his men be on their guard. Again the twigs crackled, and now there came
from the shadow of the woods not a train of Indians, but one little
girl--Ma-ta-oka, or Pocahontas.

"Be guarded, my father," she said, as Smith drew her to his side. "The
corn and the good cheer will come as promised, but even now, my father,
the chief of the Pow-ha-tans is gathering all his power to fall upon you
and kill you. If you would live, get you away at once."

The captain prepared to act upon her advice without delay, but he felt
so grateful at this latest and most hazardous proof of the little
Indian girl's regard that he desired to manifest his thankfulness by
presents--the surest way to reach an Indian's heart.

"My daughter," he said kindly, "you have again saved my life, coming
alone, and at risk of your own young life, through the irksome woods and
in this gloomy night to admonish me. Take this, I pray you, from me, and
let it always tell you of the love of Captain Smith."

And the grateful pioneer handed her his much-prized pocket compass--an
instrument regarded with awe by the Indians, and esteemed as one of the
instruments of the white man's magic.

But Ma-ta-oka, although she longed to possess this wonderful
"path-teller," shook her head.

"Not so, Cau-co-rouse," she said, "if it should be seen by my tribesmen,
or even by my father, the chief, I should but be as dead to them, for
they would know that I have warned you whom they have sworn to kill, and
so would they kill me also. Stay not to parley, my father, but be gone
at once."

And with that,