r, a Canadian of half Indian descent, who was to act as
interpreter. They were provided with a small present for the
emergency; but were to convoke a meeting of all the tribes at
Logstown, on the Ohio, early in the ensuing spring, to receive an
ample present which would be provided by the assembly.

It was some time later in the same autumn that the Ohio company
brought their plans into operation, and despatched an agent to explore
the lands upon the Ohio and its branches as low as the Great Falls.
The man chosen for the purpose was Christopher Gist, a hardy pioneer,
experienced in woodcraft and Indian life. He was allowed a woodsman or
two for the service of the expedition. He set out on the 31st of
October, crossed the ridges of the Alleghany, arrived at Shannopin, a
Delaware village on the Alleghany, swam his horses across that river,
and descending along its valley arrived at Logstown, an important
Indian village a little below the site of the present city of
Pittsburg. Here usually resided Tanacharisson, a Seneca chief of great
note, being head sachem of the mixed tribes which had migrated to the
Ohio and its branches. He was generally surnamed the half-king, being
subordinate to the Iroquois confederacy. The chief was absent at this
time, as were most of his people, it being the hunting season. George
Croghan, the envoy from Pennsylvania, with Montour his interpreter,
had passed through Logstown a week previously, on his way to the
Twightwees and other tribes, on the Miami branch of the Ohio. Scarce
any one was to be seen about the village but some of Croghan's rough
people, whom he had left behind--"reprobate Indian traders," as Gist
terms them. He took his departure from Logstown, and at Beaver Creek,
a few miles below the village, he left the river and struck into the
interior of the present State of Ohio. Here he overtook George Croghan
at Muskingum, a town of Wyandots and Mingoes. He had ordered all the
traders in his employ who were scattered among the Indian villages, to
rally at this town, where he had hoisted the English flag over his
residence, and over that of the sachem. This was in consequence of the
hostility of the French, who had recently captured, in the
neighborhood, three white men in the employ of Frazier, an Indian
trader, and had carried them away prisoners to Canada.

Gist was well received by the people of Muskingum. They were indignant
at the French violation of their territories, and the