[Illustration: _C. F. Zabriskie_

AT MILL ISLAND]

"The leader and patriarch of the party," says Miss Cooper, "was a
Methodist minister--the Rev. Mr. Kunkerpott. He was notwithstanding a
full-blooded Indian, with the regular copper-colored complexion, and
high cheek bones; the outline of his face was decidedly Roman, and his
long, gray hair had a wave which is rare among his people; his mouth,
where the savage expression is usually most strongly marked, was small,
with a kindly expression about it. Altogether he was a strange mixture
of the Methodist preacher and the Indian patriarch. His son was much
more savage than himself in appearance--a silent, cold-looking man; and
the grandson, a boy of ten or twelve, was one of the most uncouth,
impish-looking creatures we ever beheld. He wore a long-tailed coat
twice too large for him, with boots of the same size. The child's face
was very wild, and he was bareheaded, with an unusual quantity of long,
black hair streaming about his head and shoulders. While the grandfather
was conversing about old times, the boy diverted himself by twirling
around on one leg, a feat which would have seemed almost impossible,
booted as he was, but which he nevertheless accomplished with remarkable
dexterity, spinning round and round, his arms extended, his large black
eyes staring stupidly before him, his mouth open, and his long hair
flying in every direction, as wild a looking creature as one could wish
to see."

After the period of which Miss Cooper writes, Indians were even more
rarely seen in Cooperstown, and their visits soon ceased altogether. It
is a far cry from the Chingachgook and Uncas whom Fenimore Cooper
imagined to the Rev. Mr. Kunkerpott and other Indians whom his daughter