This town was inhabited by the Shawnese, and Boone was placed in a most severe school, in which to learn Indian modes and ceremonies, by being himself the subject of them. On the return of the party that led him to their home, he learned that some superstitious scruple induced them to halt at mid-day when near their village, in order to solemnize their return by entering their town in the evening. A runner was despatched from their halting place to instruct the chief and the village touching the material incidents of their expedition. Before the expedition made the triumphal entry into their village, they clad their white prisoner in a new dress, of material and fashion like theirs. They proceeded to shave his head and skewer his hair after their own fashion, and then rouged him with a plentiful smearing of vermilion and put into his hand a white staff, gorgeously tasselated with the tails of deer. The war-captain or leader of the expedition gave as many yells as they had taken prisoners and scalps. This operated as effectually as ringing a tocsin, to assemble the whole village round the camp. As soon as the warriors from the village appeared, four young warriors from the camp, the two first carrying each a calumet, approached the prisoner, chanting a song as they went, and taking him by the arm, led him in triumph to the cabin, where he was to remain until the announcement of his doom. The resident in this cabin, by their immemorial usage, had the power of determining his fate, whether to be tortured and burnt at the stake, or adopted into the tribe. The present occupant of the cabin happened to be a woman, who had lost a son during the war. It is very probable that she was favorably impressed towards him by noting his fine person, and his firm and cheerful visage--circumstances which impress the women of the red people still more strongly than the men. She contemplated him stedfastly for some time, and sympathy and humanity triumphed, and she declared that she adopted him in place of the son she had lost. The two young men, who bore the calumet, instantly unpinioned his hands, treating him with kindness and respect. Food was brought him, and he was informed that he was considered as a son, and she, who had adopted him, as his mother. He was soon made aware, by demonstrations that could not be dissembled or mistaken, that he was actually loved, and trusted, as if he really were, what his adoption purported to make him. In a few days he suffered no other penalty of captivity than inability to return to his family. He was sufficiently instructed in Indian customs to know well, that any discovered purpose or attempt to escape would be punished with instant death.