YOUNG WHITE MAN, FROM A PARTY OF INDIANS.

In the year 1787, the following incident occurred in Bourbon county
Kentucky. One morning, about sun rise, a young man of wild and savage
appearance, suddenly arose from a cluster of bushes in front of a cabin,
and hailed the house in a barbarous dialect, which seemed neither exactly
Indian nor English, but a collection of shreds and patches from which the
graces of both were carefully excluded. His skin had evidently once been
white--although now grievously tanned by constant exposure to the weather.
His dress in every respect was that of an Indian, as were his gestures,
tones and equipments, and his age could not be supposed to exceed twenty
years. He talked volubly, but uncouthly, placed his hand upon his breast,
gestured vehemently, and seemed very earnestly bent upon communicating
something. He was invited to enter the cabin, and the neighbors quickly
collected around him. He appeared involuntarily to shrink from contact
with them--his eyes rolled rapidly around with a distrustful expression
from one to the other, and his whole manner was that of a wild animal,
just caught, and shrinking from the touch of its captors.--As several
present understood the Indian tongue, they at length gathered the
following circumstances as accurately as they could be translated, out of
a language which seemed to be an "omnium gatherum" of all that was
mongrel, uncouth and barbarous. He said that he had been taken by the
Indians, when a child, but could neither recollect his name, nor the
country of his birth.--That he had been adopted by an Indian warrior, who
brought him up with his other sons, without making the slightest
difference between them, and that under his father's roof, he had lived
happily until within the last month. A few weeks before that time, his
father, accompanied by himself and a younger brother, had hunted for some
time upon the waters of the Miami, about forty miles from the spot where
Cincinnati now stands, and after all their meat, skins, &c., had been
properly secured, the old man determined to gratify his children by taking
them upon a war expedition to Kentucky. They accordingly built a bark
canoe, in which they crossed the Ohio, near the mouth of Licking, and
having buried it, so as to secure it from the action of the sun, they
advanced into the country and encamped at the distance of fifteen miles
from the river. Here their father was alarmed by hearing an owl c