Following the bath came the process of greasing him from head to foot and decorating his face with pigments, after which he was clad in breech-clout and moccasins. This done, he was seated upon the bank for a no less severe ordeal. This consisted in plucking out the hair of his head, all but a tuft, or scalp lock, to which coloured feathers were tied. An Indian did the work, dipping his fingers in ashes that he might get better hold. Conrad never winced or made outcry throughout the various ordeals. A blanket was given to the boy, who was then led into a wigwam, where an old Indian conducted ceremonies, on which Conrad looked with awe, though understanding but little of them. Their solemnity, however, impressed him deeply and it is very doubtful whether, after they were over, he would have dared run away had he been so inclined. The boy's eyes were light blue and his hair was yellow; but his cheekbones were high, his face stolid, so that now, when paint and grease had been added to sunburn, and he stood clothed in full Indian garb, no one would think him other than an Indian but for those tell-tale blue eyes. The Wyandottes, of which people he now considered himself one, occupied territory in what is now the north-central portion of Ohio. The year was 1772, not long ago in history, but measured by change, very long ago. Then, the country was little different from what it had been for thousands of years. Now, it seems another world and the map of it shows great cities where were forests and connecting these are what at first resemble spiders' webs, but which are highways. Few white men then came to that region, where now few red men are seen, indeed none living the life they then lived. Such whites as came were a few French voyageurs and Jesuit missionaries and hunters and traders from the English colonies. The traders did not scruple to exchange, for valuable furs, guns, tomahawks and ammunition, which they knew would be turned against the whites of the frontier in time of war; and many of them sold the savages liquor, knowing an Indian would sell his soul for it and having drank it would become a fiend incarnate. On the south flowed the Ohio River, along which white men were pushing their way, and settling on land in what is now Kentucky and Tennessee, and looking with covetous eyes on the land between that river and the lakes, but which the Indians claimed had been reserved to them by treaty. The shrewder among the Indian leaders foresaw the time when they would have to fight and overwhelm the intruders or submit to their hunting grounds being spoiled by the white man. This feeling of uneasiness was spreading among the tribes, and the younger warriors were eager to fight and not infrequently were guilty of marauding expeditions.