“Two hundred year-seasons ago, the Abenaques were the great nation of the east. From the sea to the mountains they were the lords of Mavoshen.[1] They were a nation of warriors and a wise and active people. But, of all the four tribes--the Sokokis, the Anasquanticooks, the Kenabas, the Wawenocks--who made up this great nation, the Sokokis were the wisest and bravest. Wenongonet is proud when he thinks of them. They were his tribe. All the land that sent its waters through the Sawocotuc[2] to the sea was theirs. They stood with their warriors at the outposts against the crowding white settlers from the west and south. They were pleased to stand there, because it was the post of danger and of honor in the nation. And there they bravely kept their stand against that wide front of war, and took the battle on themselves, till the snows of more than a hundred winters were made red by their rifles and tomahawks. But those who court death must often fall into his embrace. So with the Sokokis. They were at first a great and many people; but they wasted and fell, as time, the bringer of new and strange things, wore away, before the thick and more thick coming of their greedy and pushing foes,--by their fire-water in peace and their bullets in war, till the many became few, the great small. What the bloody Church, with his swarm of picked warriors, had left after his four terrible comings with fire and slaughter, the bold Lovewell finished, on that black day when the great Paugus and all the flower of the tribe found red graves round their ancient stronghold and home,--their beloved Pegwacket.[3] This was the last time the tribe was ever assembled as a separate people. The name of the Sokokis, at which so many pale faces had been made paler, was buried in the graves of the brave warriors who had here died to defend its glory. The feeble remnant, panic-struck and heart-broken, fled northward, and, like the withered leaves of the forest flying before the strong east wind, were scattered and swept over the mountains into Canada; all but the family of Paugus, who took their stand on these lakes, where his son, Waurumba, took the empty title of chief, and, dying, left it still more empty to Wenongonet, the last of the long line of sagamores,--the last ever to stand here to tell the young white man the story of their greatness, and the fate of their tribe.” On concluding his story, the chief turned to his daughter and significantly pointed to the lengthening shadows of the trees on the water, with a motion of his head towards their home up the lakes. “The chief thinks,” said Fluella, arousing herself from the thoughtful attitude in which she had been silently listening to the conversation,--“the chief thinks it time we were on the water, on our way home. We shall have now to bid Mr. Elwood a good-evening.”