of his old age; and by promising to send his son on his return home,
whose eyes were young and good, and who knew the desired spot and would
show it. The son, however, never visited the scene of his father's
failure; and thus ended the adventures of the celebrated mining company
of Kentucky."

CATAHECASSA, OR BLACK-HOOF.

Among the celebrated chiefs of the Shawanoes, Black Hoof is entitled to
a high rank. He was born in Florida, and at the period of the removal
of a portion of that tribe to Ohio and Pennsylvania, was old enough to
recollect having bathed in the salt water. He was present with others
of his tribe, at the defeat of Braddock, near Pittsburg, in 1755, and
was engaged in all the wars in Ohio from that time until the treaty of
Greenville, in 1795. Such was the sagacity of Black Hoof in planning
his military expeditions, and such the energy with which he executed
them, that he won the confidence of his whole nation, and was never at
a loss for _braves_ to fight under his banner. "He was known far and
wide, as the great Shawanoe warrior, whose cunning, sagacity and
experience were only equalled by the fierce and desperate bravery with
which he carried into operation his military plans. Like the other
Shawanoe chiefs, he was the inveterate foe of the white man, and held
that no peace should be made, nor any negotiation attempted, except on
the condition that the whites should repass the mountains, and leave
the great plains of the west to the sole occupancy of the native
tribes.

"He was the orator of his tribe during the greater part of his long
life, and was an excellent speaker. The venerable colonel Johnston of
Piqua, to whom we are indebted for much valuable information, describes
him as the most graceful Indian he had ever seen, and as possessing the
most natural and happy faculty of expressing his ideas. He was well
versed in the traditions of his people; no one understood better their
peculiar relations to the whites, whose settlements were gradually
encroaching on them, or could detail with more minuteness the wrongs
with which his nation was afflicted. But although a stern and
uncompromising opposition to the whites had marked his policy through a
series of forty years, and nerved his arm in a hundred battles, he
became at length convinced of the madness of an ineffectual struggle
against a vastly superior and hourly increasing foe. No sooner had he
satisfied himself of this truth, than he acted