Elated with their unexpected success, the Indians now returned at once to old Chilicothe, the principal town of the Shawnees, on the Little Miami, treating their prisoners, during a march of three days in very cold and inclement weather, as well as they fared themselves, as regarded fire and provisions. Boone and his companions were kept in captivity by the Indians, and closely watched for several weeks, when the old pioneer and ten of his men were conducted to Detroit, then a British garrison, and all but Boone presented to the commandant, by whom they were all well treated. For the old pioneer himself, the Indians had conceived a particular liking; and they stubbornly refused to give him up, though several gentlemen of Detroit were very anxious they should leave him, and the commandant offered to ransom him by a liberal sum. He was therefore compelled to accompany them back to Chillicothe, their town on the Little Miami, which they reached after a march of fifteen days. Boone was now formally adopted as a son in one of the Indian families. "The forms of the ceremony of adoption," says Mr. Peck,[36] "were often severe and ludicrous. The hair of the head is plucked out by a painful and tedious operation, leaving a tuft, some three or four inches in diameter, on the crown, for the scalp-lock, which is cut and dressed up with ribbons and feathers. The candidate is then taken into the river in a state of nudity, and there thoroughly washed and rubbed, 'to take all his white blood out.' This ablution is usually performed by females. He is then taken to the council-house, where the chief makes a speech, in which he expatiates upon the distinguished honors conferred on him. His head and face are painted in the most approved and fashionable style, and the ceremony is concluded with a grand feast and smoking." After undergoing after this fashion what was not inaptly termed the Indian toilette, Boone was considered a regular member of the tribe, and by judiciously accommodating himself to his new condition, he rapidly won upon the regards of the Indians, and soon secured their confidence. They challenged him to a trial of skill at their shooting-matches--in which he took care not to excel them--invited him to accompany them on their hunting excursions, bestowed particular notice upon him in various ways, and always treated him with much consideration. As regarded merely his physical comfort, Boone's situation was, at this time, rather enviable than otherwise; but he felt a depressing anxiety with regard to his wife and children, and doubted the safety and prosperity of the Station, without his own watchfulness and superintendence. He therefore determined to escape from his captors at the earliest possible period, and very impatiently waited an opportunity for accomplishing this purpose.