136 ON A GLASS ROOF 



— Iroquois, Waubanakees, and whites; notable 

 among them, with a bloody page in history, that of 

 De Sainte-Helene and De Mantet, French and 

 Indians, creeping like panthers toward doomed 

 Schenectady, then retm-ning, gorged with blood 

 and pillage. 



This tamed great-grandson of those panthers 

 looked peaceable and kindly enough, but was at 

 jfirst as taciturn as his ancestors could have been, 

 and as slow to be drawn into conversation as the 

 fish to the companionship which I desired of them; 

 but, baiting with tobacco and lunch, I at last drew 

 some talk from him. He told me that he and a few 

 of his people were wintering in a neighboring vil- 

 lage, making baskets and bows and arrows. They 

 found but little sale for these, and, for want of 

 something better to do, he had come a-fishing. 

 Years before I had known some of his people, and 

 through him I learned somewhat of my old ac- 

 quaintances. One of them was Swasin Tahmont, 

 who I doubt not was the Tahmunt Swasen of 

 Thoreau's "Maine Woods." I was surprised to 

 hear that he had gone to the happy hunting- 

 grounds by the fire-water way, for when I knew 

 him he would not touch whiskey and was very 

 pious. He used to sing hjinns to me in Waubana- 

 kee, and always said grace before his musquash- 

 meat. Wadso, who many years ago had told me 

 the Indian names of all these streams, had also 



