The Indian woman who rescued Virginia Dare was Wahceta, wife of Manteno, the Croatoan chief.  
This Indian woman had other children of her own, some almost grown up, and when she brought this little white waif into their midst they gazed in awe and wonderment, and exclaimed, "White Doe!" And this was the name given by common consent to the little intruder.
 
Wahceta cared for the babe as if it were her very own.
 
The helplessness of the little guest made an appeal to Wahceta, and she guarded her charge with jealous eyes, and a love that she had never manifested for her own children. Manteno looked on and shrugged his shoulders in half token of fear, for a white doe was a thing to be feared, since the superstition was that it was sent by the Great Spirit as a warning.
 
Hunters to this day are familiar with the occasional appearance of a white deer—an albino—one of Nature's sports, like the proverbial black sheep, to be found in every flock of white ones.
 
The Indians regarded a white doe as invincible to all weapons save a silver arrow alone. A white doe bore a charmed life, and was looked after with especial care by protecting spirits.
 
And so in wonder, when Wahceta would walk past, bearing on her back the white babe, the Indians silently made way, feeling somehow that they were close to the Great Spirit.
 
The child grew and learned to speak the Croatoan language with a glibness that made Wahceta laugh aloud in glee.
 
 
White Doe had flaxen hair, that glistened with the sheen of the sunshine. Very proud was Wahceta of those yellow locks, and she used to braid them in long strands, while the Indians stood around, looking on, having nothing else to do.
 
One day, when White Doe was about ten years old, she went away into the forest as she often did; but when night came on she had not returned. Wahceta went out to look for her, and called aloud in shrill soprano, but no reply came.
 
Manteno was appealed to, to arouse the braves and go search for the lost little girl. But Manteno was tired and sleepy, and he had faith in Providence. He knew that the child would be cared for by the Great Spirit. Wahceta started a bonfire on the hill above the village, and waited away the long hours of the night for her lost baby.
 
In the morning, just as the sun peeped over the tree-tops, White Doe appeared, her hair all wet with the dew of the night, and her feet cut and bleeding.
 
She was leading and half-dragging something—was it a dog or a wolf? Wahceta sprang forward to take the child in her arms. "Get behind, mother, and push," said little White Doe. "It's a white doe and I've held it all night for fear it would get away! Push hard, mother, dear, and we will get it in the teepee and tie it with green withes, and it will become gentle, and bring us all good luck."
 
The child had discovered this white fawn with its mother, feeding near a salt-lick. White Doe lay on a rock above the spring, waiting for the deer to come up close. There the girl waited for hours. She knew that at dusk the deer would come to the spring.
 
Sure enough, her patience was suddenly rewarded. She leaped from her rock and pinned the white fawn fast. The old deer disappeared into the forest. The girl held on to her prize. It struck her with its forefeet, but she held it close. By and by, tired out, the fawn lay still and rested entwined in the girl's arms. Now came the test—to get it home! She succeeded.
 
In the teepee of Wahceta, the animal was fed, caressed and cared for.
 
It grew docile, and in a few days followed its little mistress about wherever she went. The Indians looked on in half-dread, with superstitious awe.
 
"All the wild animals would be as tame as this if you were not so cruel to them," she said. "You fear the wolves and bears and so you kill them!"
 
To prove her point she began to hunt the[Pg 26] forests for young bears and cub wolves. She found several, and brought them home, making household friends of them. And still more did the Indians marvel. So the days went by then, as the days go by now, and White Doe grew into gorgeous, glowing girlhood.
 
Her ability to run, climb, shoot with bow and arrow, to see, to hear, to revel in Nature, gave her a lithe, strong, tall and beautiful form and an alert mind. Of her birth she knew nothing, save that she was descended from another race—a race of half-gods, the Indians said. White Doe believed it, and her pride of pedigree was supreme.
 
The other children, dark as smoked copper, stood around clothed in their black hair—and little else—hair as black as the raven's wing.
 
 
Wahceta watched her charge with fear for the future. White Doe had temper, intelligence, wit, ability. She would roam the forests alone, unafraid. She knew where the bee-trees were, for even as a child she saw that the bees would gather at the basswood, and then loaded with honey would fly straight away for their homes. To follow them in their flight required a practised eye, but this White Doe had, and always the white doe followed her. She wove the inner bark of the slippery-elm into baskets, and would supply the teepee of Wahceta and Manteno with more berries, potatoes and goobers than any other teepee enjoyed.
 
Then she laid out gardens and tilled the soil with a wonderful wooden hoe, carved out of solid hickory with her own hands. Wahceta was growing old, and as her[Pg 28] sight was becoming dim White Doe would lead her about through the forest and care for her as Wahceta once cared for White Doe.
 
The work of looking after Manteno's tent drifted by degrees into the hands of White Doe. Her industry, her thrift, her intelligence set her apart.
 
The Indian is like a white man in this: he allows work and responsibility to drift into the hands of those who can manage them. White Doe set about to build stone houses to replace the bark teepees. Where did she get the idea? Prenatal tendencies you say? Possibly. She drew pictures with a burnt stick on the flat surface of the cliff, and then ornamented these pictures with red and blue chalk which she dug from the ground. She took the juice of the grape, the elder[Pg 29] and the whortleberry, and brewed them together to make wondrous colors for the pictures: and in some of the caves of North Carolina may be seen the pictures, even unto this day, drawn by White Doe. Wahceta passed away and her form was wrapped in its winding-sheet of deerskins and bark and placed high in the forks of a tree-top, awaiting the pleasure of the Great Spirit.
 
Manteno also died. And the people did not choose another chief—they looked to White Doe for counsel and guidance. She was their "medicine-man," in case of sickness or accident, and in health their counselor and Queen. Indians from other towns and distant came to her. She cured the sick and healed the lame.
 
She lived alone in a stone hut, guarded by a wolf and a bear that she had brought[Pg 30] up from their babyhood. They ............