THE ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH. 
801 
about it; he got ready fifteen or twenty stout young 
men, “ stript ’em naked, and painted ’em like old times,” 
and told them that when the priest and his party went to 
cut down the liberty-pole, they were to rush up, take hold 
of it and prevent them, and he assured them that there 
would be no war, only a noise, “ no war where priest 
is.” He kept his men concealed in a house near by, and 
when the priest’s party were about to cut down the lib¬ 
erty-pole, the fall of which would have been a death-blow 
to the school party, he gave a signal, and his young men 
rushed out and seized the pole. There was a great up¬ 
roar, and they were about coming to blows, but the priest 
interfered, saying, “No war, no war,” and so the pole 
stands, and the school goes on still. 
We thought that it showed a good deal of tact in him, 
to seize this occasion and take his stand on it; proving 
how well he understood those with whom he had to deal. 
The Olamon River comes in from the east in Green- 
bush a few miles below the Passadumkeag. When we 
asked the meaning of this name, the Indian said that there 
was an island opposite its mouth which was called Olar- 
mon . That in old times, when visitors were coming to 
Oldtown, they used to stop there to dress and fix up or 
paint themselves. “ What is that which ladies used ? ” 
he asked. Rouge ? Red vermilion ? “ Yer,” he said, 
“ that is larmon , a kind of clay or red paint, which they 
used to get here.” 
We decided that we too would stop at this island, and 
fix up our inner man, at least, by dining. 
It was a large island with an abundance of hemp-net¬ 
tle, but I did not notice any kind of red paint there. 
The Olarmon River, at its mouth at least, is a dead 
stream. There was another large island in that neigh- 
