7 °, 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 https://archive.org/details/silverarrow00hubb_0 
 

 
THE 
 
 SILVER ARROW 
 
 BY ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 
 „ a, 4 
 
 PRINTED 
 
 BY THE ROYCROFTERS AT 
 EAST AURORA, N. Y. 
 
Copyrighted 1923 
 By The Roycrofters 
 
C-fB 
 
 £)&3h3 
 
 THE SILVER ARROW 
 
 w 
 
 And so it happened that Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, the graceful, the gracious, the 
 generous, had spread his cloak in the 
 pathway of Queen Elizabeth and had been 
 taken into her especial favor. 
 
 The Queen was nineteen years older than 
 Sir Walter; that is to say, she was in her 
 fifties, and he was in his thirties. 
 
 But Queen Bess hated old age, and swore 
 a halibi for the swift passing years, and 
 always delighted in the title of the “Vir¬ 
 gin Queen.” 
 
 Sir Walter did one great thing for England, 
 and one for Ireland. He taught the Eng- 
 
 5 fc- 
 
lisli the use of tobacco, and he discovered 
 the “ Irish potato ”—which is native to 
 America. 
 
 They do say that Sir Walter and Queen 
 Elizabeth enjoyed many a quiet smoke 
 with their feet on the table—so as to 
 equalize circulation. Both of them were 
 big folk, with plans and ambitions plus. 
 Sir Walter was contemporary with Shake¬ 
 speare, and in fact looked like him, acted 
 like him and had a good deal of the same 
 agile, joyous, bubbling fertility of mind. 
 That is, Sir Walter and William were 
 lovers by nature; and love rightly exer¬ 
 cised, and alternately encouraged and 
 thwarted, gives the alternating current, 
 and Jo! we have that which the world 
 calls genius. And I am told by those 
 who know, that you can never get genius 
 in any other way. 
 
 6 Ja- 
 
Good Queen Bess—who was not so very- 
 good—fanned the ambitions of Sir 
 Walter and flattered his abilities. And of 
 course any man born in a lowly station, or 
 high, would have been immensely com¬ 
 plimented by the gentle love-taps, and 
 sighs, vain or otherwise, not to mention 
 the glimmering glances of the alleged 
 Virgin Queen. 
 
 But a good way to throttle love is to spy 
 on it, question it, analyze it, vivisect it. 
 And so Sir Walter’s bubbling heart had 
 chills of fear when he discovered that he 
 was being followed wherever he went by 
 the secret emissaries of Elizabeth. 
 
 Had he been free to act he would have dis¬ 
 posed of these spies, and quickly too; but 
 he was in thrall to a Queen, and was pay¬ 
 ing for his political power by being de¬ 
 prived of his personality. Oho, and Ohol 
 
 ■4 7 
 
 y 
 
The law of compensation acted then as 
 now, and nothing is ever given away; 
 everything is bought with a price—even 
 the favors of royalty. 
 
 And behold! In the palace of the Queen, 
 as janitor, gardener, scullion and all- 
 around handy man was one John White, 
 obscure, and yet elevated on account of 
 his lack of wit. 
 
 He was so stupid that he was amusing. 
 Sayings bright and clever that courtiers 
 flung off when the wine went around were 
 imputed to John White. Thus he came to 
 have a renown which was not his own; 
 and Sir Walter Raleigh, with his cheery, 
 generous ways, attributed many a quiet 
 quip and quillet to John White which John 
 White had never thought nor said. 
 
 Now John White had a daughter, Eleanor 
 by name, tall and fair and gracious, 
 
 8 |s~ 
 
bearing in her veins the blood of Vikings 
 bold; and her yellow hair blew in the 
 breeze as did the yellow hair of those con¬ 
 querors who discovered America and 
 built the blockhouses along the coast of 
 Rhode Island. 
 
 Doubtless in his youth John White had a 
 deal of sturdy worth, but a bump on the 
 sconce at some Donnybrook Fair early in 
 his young manhood had sent his wits a 
 woolgathering. 
 
 But the girl was not thus handicapped; 
 her mind was alert and eager. 
 
 The mother of Eleanor had passed away, 
 and the girl had grown strong and able in 
 spirit through carrying burdens and facing 
 responsibilities. She knew the limitations 
 of her father and she knew his worth; and 
 she also knew that he was a sort of un¬ 
 official fool for the court, being duly 
 
 -4 9 
 
 
 
installed through the clever and heedless 
 tongue of Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
 Who would ever have thought that Sir 
 Walter, the diplomat, the strong, the able, 
 was to be brought low by this fair-haired 
 daughter of John White, the court fool! 
 “ You are Sir Walter Raleigh," said this 
 girl of nineteen one day to Sir Walter 
 when they met squarely face to face in a 
 hallway. It was a bold thing to do to stop 
 this statesman, and she only a daughter to 
 a court fool, and herself a worker below 
 stairs! 
 
 Sir Walter smiled, removed his hat in mock 
 gallantry, and said, “ I have the honor 
 
 to be your obedient servant. And who are 
 
 ? »* 
 
 The girl, bouyed up by a combination of 
 pride and fear, replied, “ I am Eleanor 
 White, the daughter of the man whom 
 
 •cj 10 
 
your wit has rendered famous.” And their 
 eyes met in level, steady look. Fair femin¬ 
 inity aroused caught the eye and the ear 
 of Sir Walter. 
 
 ” Yes,” said he, ” I think I have seen you. 
 And what can I do for you?” 
 
 ” Only this,” said Eleanor, 44 that from 
 this day forth you will not attribute any 
 more of your ribaldry to my father.” 
 44 Otherwise, what?” asked Sir Walter. 
 44 Otherwise you will have me to deal 
 with,” said the proud Eleanor, and walked 
 past him. 
 
 He tried to call her back; he felt humiliated 
 that she did not turn and look, much less 
 listen. He had been snubbed. 
 
 The banderilla went home, and the next 
 day Sir Walter felt that he must hunt out 
 this girl with the yellow locks and make 
 peace with her, for surely he of all men did 
 
 -rj ii 
 
not want to hurt the feeling of any living 
 being, neither did he want his own feelings 
 hurt. 
 
 So he sought her out, and that which be¬ 
 gan in a quarrel soon evolved into some¬ 
 thing else. There were meetings by 
 moonlight, notes passed, glances given, 
 hand-clasps in the dark, and all of those 
 absurd, foolish, irrelevant and unneces¬ 
 sary things that lovers do. 
 
 The girl was not of noble birth. But neither 
 was Sir Walter, for that matter. Love 
 knows nothing of titles and position. 
 But how could these two ever imagine 
 that they could elude the gimlet eyes of 
 Good Queen Bess, who wasn’t so very good! 
 Queen Elizabeth had ways of punishing 
 that were exquisite, deep, delicate and 
 far-reaching, which touched the very 
 marrow of the soul. 
 
 II 
 
Sir Walter had been presented by the 
 Queen with a title to all the land in Amer¬ 
 ica, from Nova Scotia to Florida; and he, 
 in pretty compliment, had officially named 
 this tract of land Virginia. 
 
 The French had taken possession of the 
 New World at the North, and the Span¬ 
 iards at the South, and along the coast of 
 what is now North Carolina the English 
 had planted a colony. 
 
 It was the intention of Sir Walter to send 
 expeditions over and take the whole land 
 captive, so that Virginia would in fact be 
 the land of the Virgin Queen. 
 
 At the center of this tract along the coast 
 was to be the city of Raleigh. The Queen 
 and Sir Walter had worked this out at 
 length, and she had given him a special 
 charter for the great city to be. 
 
 And now behold! She, with the mind of 
 
 13 fc- 
 
a man, had perfected her plans for the 
 building of the city of Raleigh. She 
 planned an expedition, and fitted out the 
 ships with sixty men and women from a 
 receiving-ship that lay in the Thames. 
 These people were being sent out of 
 England for England’s good. And these 
 were the people who were to found the 
 city of Raleigh; and the Governor of this 
 colony was to be—John White! he was to 
 be the first mayor, Lord Mayor, of the city 
 of Raleigh. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth had selected a husband for 
 Eleanor White, an unknown youth—a 
 defective, in fact, and one without moral 
 or mental responsibility. She had forced 
 a marriage, or in any event had recorded 
 it as such. The youth was known as 
 Ananias Dare. Even in the naming of this 
 individual, who had never dared anv- 
 
 14 Js- 
 
thing, the name “ Ananias ” carried with 
 it a subtle sting. 
 
 John White and his daughter Eleanor, 
 and Ananias Dare, were taken forcibly 
 and put on the ship, which was duly 
 provisioned, and the order given to found 
 the city of Raleigh on the Island of 
 Roanoke in the country called Virginia. 
 A suitable sailor was selected as navigator, 
 and orders were given him to land the 
 colonists, and come back. 
 
 And so the expedition sailed away for the 
 New World; and Sir Walter Raleigh in the 
 secret of his room beat his head in anguish 
 ’gainst the wall and called aloud for death 
 to come and relieve him of his pain. 
 And thus did Queen Elizabeth dispose of 
 her rival, and punish with fantastic hate 
 and jealousy the man she loved. 
 
 John White, Eleanor and Ananias Dare, 
 
 '4 15 
 
with the motley group of unskilled men 
 and women, were duly landed in the 
 forest on Roanoke Island. Battle with the 
 elements requires judgment, skill, experi¬ 
 ence, and these were things that our poor 
 colonists did not possess. 
 
 Two weeks after landing on Roanoke 
 Island a daughter was born to Eleanor. 
 The captain of the ship had given orders 
 that if the babe was a boy it was to be 
 named Walter Raleigh Dare; if a girl the 
 name was to be Virginia. 
 
 And they called the child Virginia Dare, 
 and her name was so recorded in the 
 history of the colony. She was duly 
 baptized a week later, and the record of 
 her birth and baptism still exists in the 
 Colonial Archives in London. 
 
 This was the first white child born in 
 America. 
 
 •sj 16 Jfc- 
 
Very shortly after the baptism of the babe, 
 the captain of the ship sailed away for 
 England, leaving the colonists in their 
 ignorance and helplessness to battle with 
 the elements, wild beasts, and Indians as 
 best they could. 
 
 We can imagine with what cruel delight 
 Queen Elizabeth called Sir Walter Raleigh 
 into her presence and had him read aloud 
 to her and the assembled court the record 
 of the birth of Virginia Dare. 
 
 As for the colonists, their days were few 
 and evil. Dissensions and feuds arose, as 
 they naturally would. John White was 
 deposed as Governor, and when he re¬ 
 sisted he was killed. 
 
 The idea of going to work, tilling the soil, 
 and building a permanent settlement was 
 not in the hearts of those people. They 
 expected to find gold and silver and 
 
 <$ 17 
 
fountains of youth. They felt they were 
 marooned, robbed and stranded. The 
 Indians, at first fearful, were now jealous of 
 these white intruders. The quarrel came 
 and the Indians fell upon the colonists 
 and killed every one. Every one, did I say? 
 There was one saved; it was the little 
 white baby, Virginia Dare. 
 
 She was rescued by a squaw, who but a 
 short time before had lost her own babe, 
 and her hungry mother heart went out to 
 that helpless little white waif. She seized 
 upon the child and carried it away into 
 the forest for safety. 
 
 -cj 18 Jfr 
 
■4 PART TWO fc- 
 
 On Thursday, October Twenty-ninth, 
 Sixteen Hundred Eighteen, at the Tower of 
 London, the curtain fell on the fifth act 
 of the life of Sir Walter Raleigh. It was a 
 public holiday for all London. 
 
 The morning was cold and foggy. 
 
 Sir Walter was kept standing on the 
 scaffold while the headsman ground his 
 axe, the delay being for the amusement 
 and edification of the people assembled. 
 The High Sheriff approached the man 
 who was so soon to die, and asked if there 
 was not some last message he wished to 
 send to some one. Sir Walter took from his 
 neck a gold chain and locket. He handed 
 them to the Sheriff and said, “ Send these 
 by a trusty messenger to Virginia Dare by 
 the first ship that sails for the New 
 World.*' 
 
 •d{ 19 
 
Sir Walter’s frame shook in the cold, 
 dank fog, and the Sheriff offered to bring 
 a brazier of coals, but the great man 
 proudly drew his cloak about him and 
 said: “It is the ague I contracted in 
 America. I will soon be cured of it!” And 
 he laid his proud head, gray in the service 
 of his country, calmly on the block, as if 
 to say, “ There now, take that, it is all I 
 have left to give!’’ 
 
 Among the crowd that pushed, jostled, 
 leered and looked was one Oliver Crom¬ 
 well, short, swart and strong, a country 
 youth who had come up to London to 
 make his fortune. And Oliver Cromwell 
 there and then made a vow that he would 
 dedicate his life to the death of tyranny. 
 So died Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
 And Oliver Cromwell went forth to meet 
 Fate as Destiny had willed. 
 
 -dJ 2.0 Js- 
 
4 PART THREE fc- 
 
 The Indian woman who rescued Vir¬ 
 ginia 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 wonder¬ 
 ment, 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 
 
 2.1 fc- 
 
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 in¬ 
 vincible 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. 
 
 2 . 2 . 
 
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. 
 
 •< 2.3 
 
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 some¬ 
 thing—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. 
 
 •cj 2.4 Js. 
 
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 fore¬ 
 feet, 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 
 
 -sj 2.5 
 
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 gor¬ 
 geous, 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. 
 
 2.6 Js- 
 
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 fol¬ 
 lowed her. She wove the inner bark of 
 the slippery-elm into baskets, and would 
 supply the teepee of Wahceta and Man- 
 teno with more berries, potatoes and goo¬ 
 bers 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 
 
 27 }> 
 
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 intelli¬ 
 gence 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 orna¬ 
 mented these pictures with red and blue 
 chalk which she dug from the ground. 
 She took the juice of the grape, the elder 
 
 -cji8 ]h- 
 
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 
 
 19 
 
up from their babyhood. They followed 
 her footsteps wherever she went, and also, 
 too, came the white doe, fleet of foot, 
 luminous of eye, sensitive, intelligent, 
 seemingly intent on carrying the messages 
 of her mistress. 
 
 White Doe, the Indian Queen, with long 
 yellow hair, and the big, mild, yet 
 searching blue eyes, knew her power and 
 exercised it. 
 
 Indian braves, young and handsome, 
 came and sat on the grass cross-legged for 
 hours, at a discreet distance from her 
 hut, making love to her in pantomime. 
 They sent her presents rare and precious, 
 of buckskins, tanned soft as velvet, nuggets 
 of silver strung as beads and strings of 
 wampum. 
 
 These braves she set to work down in the 
 bottom-lands. It is said that no other 
 
 30 J* 
 
person was ever able to set the male 
 Indian to work. But for her the braves 
 built stone houses, planted gardens, and 
 laid stepping-stones across the fords, so 
 that she could walk across dry-shod. 
 The nuggets of silver that they brought 
 her from the mountains she fashioned into 
 an exquisite arrow of silver, sharper at the 
 point than the sharpest flint. For days and 
 weeks and months she worked making 
 the silver arrow. 
 
 “ What is it for?” the Indians asked. 
 ” It is to help me when all other help is 
 gone,” she said. 
 
 And the Indians were silent, mystified. 
 She planted slips of grapes brought from 
 the sunny slopes; these she tended, dug 
 about, trained and trimmed. The wonder¬ 
 ful Scuppernong Grape was her own 
 evolution. By care and culture it covered 
 
 3 1 
 
the cabin where she lived, and reached out 
 to an oak a hundred feet beyond. 
 
 She showed the Indians how to double 
 their crops of corn, how to grow such 
 melons as the Indian world had never 
 before known. 
 
 She taught them that it was much better 
 to work and produce flowers, grain, grapes, 
 and make pictures on the rocks than to 
 roam the woods aimlessly, looking for 
 something to kill. 
 
 She told them that the Great Spirit loved 
 people who were kind and useful, and 
 temperate in the use of the juice of the 
 grape and in all other good things. So the 
 Croatoans advanced and grew in intelligence 
 quite beyond any of the other Indian tribes 
 on the Atlantic coast. One day White 
 Doe sat at the door of her cabin, under 
 the great vine where hung the grapes. 
 
 32 
 
She was intently painting a picture on 
 buckskin. 
 
 The white doe was nibbling at the bushes 
 only a few feet away. 
 
 The gray wolf crouched at her feet sud¬ 
 denly snarled, and the hair on his back 
 arose in wrath. 
 
 White Doe looked up, and there at a dis¬ 
 tance of a hundred feet stood a man—a 
 pale faced man. 
 
 He saw the wolf, and stood stock-still. 
 White Doe looked at the man, and sud¬ 
 denly her heart beat fast. She felt the 
 color mounting to her face. She drew 
 her long, yellow hair over her neck and 
 her buckskin dress up at the shoulder. 
 The man motioned for her to come to him. 
 Evidently he saw the wolf and dare not go 
 forward. She arose, pacified the wolf, and 
 slipped forward. 
 
 -4 33 
 
The man had a dark beard, but his com¬ 
 plexion told her that they were of the 
 same race. 
 
 He spoke to her in English. 
 
 She had never before heard a word of the 
 language spoken. 
 
 In amazement she listened, and then shook 
 her head. 
 
 The man now resorted to the sign lan¬ 
 guage; he made the motions of paddling 
 a canoe, and pointed toward the sea. And 
 then she knew that he had come from far 
 across the sea in a ship. 
 
 He took from one of his pockets a chain of 
 gold; and attached to this chain was a 
 little gold locket. 
 
 He opened the locket and showed her a 
 picture inside. On the locket was engraved 
 the words, “ To Sir Walter Raleigh, from 
 his Queen, Elizabeth.” 
 
 ■ 4 . 34 I 5 - 
 
White Doe saw the inscription, but she 
 could not read it. 
 
 The man offered to put the chain and locket 
 about her neck. She stepped back, and the 
 wolf at her heels snarled. She made a 
 motion that the interview was ended and 
 that the man should go to see the Indians 
 whose houses and cabins were but a short 
 distance away. 
 
 The man did not go. Instead, he in the 
 universal sign language took off his hat, 
 pressed his hand on his heart, and fell 
 on one knee. He motioned to the East, 
 away—away, away across the sea! 
 
 Would she go with him? 
 
 Proudly she shook her head, half-smiled 
 and again ordered him to go. 
 
 Her manner said plainly that this was her 
 home: She was Queen of the Croatoans— 
 was this not enough? 
 
 35 
 
A shade of anger moved across the man’s 
 face. He was used to having his orders 
 obeyed. He moved toward her as if he 
 would seize her. Now it was her turn to 
 stand still. The wolf leaped to her side, 
 and across the intervening space from the 
 cabin lumbered a big black bear. 
 
 The man now backed slowly away some 
 ten paces, and then he lifted a gun that lay 
 on the grass where he had left it. 
 
 Suddenly a score of white men emerged 
 from the bushes. 
 
 There was a flash of fire, a loud explosion, 
 a great volume of white smoke. And the 
 wolf, the bear, and the white doe all fell 
 weltering in their blood. 
 
 The wolf was not dead, and with fierce 
 snarls tried desperately to crawl toward 
 the white man. One of the men ran for¬ 
 ward and beat its brains out with a club. 
 
 -4 36 Js- 
 
The Indians came rushing from their 
 houses. 
 
 There was another flash of fire, a cloud of 
 smoke, and the forward Indian fell dead. 
 The rest of the red folks fled in wild alarm. 
 White Doe stood still, her yellow hair 
 blowing in the sunshine. Again the leader 
 of the white men came forward, a smile of 
 triumph on his face. His manner said more 
 plainly than any words could express: 
 “ You are in my power. See! I have killed 
 your protectors, your friends. So I can kill 
 you. You must come with me.” 
 
 He pressed his hand to his heart in sign of 
 love. 
 
 The woman backed away frojn him, her 
 eyes shooting hatred and defiance. 
 
 At her girdle hung the silver arrow. Her 
 hand now reached for it. 
 
 The man leaped forward and attempted to 
 
 A 37 
 
seize her. His reach fell short, for the 
 woman was quicker and quite as strong 
 as he. She flung him aside. The silver arrow 
 was in her right hand. She held it aloft 
 like a dagger. 
 
 The man retreated. 
 
 “Coward,” she cried in Croatoan. “Cow¬ 
 ard! It is not for you. It is my last friend 
 the friend that has been waiting to save 
 me all these years!” 
 
 The arrow flashed in the air, and with a 
 terrific lunge went straight to the woman’s 
 heart. 
 
 She leaped into the air, reeled and fell 
 across the body of the dying doe. And the 
 blood of the two friends intermingled. 
 
 3 8 
 
SO HERE, THEN, ENDETH THE TALE OF 
 “THE SILVER ARROW,” WRITTEN BY ELBERT 
 HUBBARD, AND MADE INTO A BOOK BY THE 
 ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE 
 IN EAST AURORA, COUNTY OF ERIE, STATE 
 OF NEW YORK, ANNO DOMINI, NINETEEN 
 HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE, AND SINCE THEIR 
 FOUNDING THE THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR 444