The chief, meanwhile, at intervals of about three hours, came out at the head of his company, raised the war-whoop, and marched round the red war-pole, holding in his right hand the pine or cedar boughs, on which the scalps were attached, waving them backward and forward, and then returned again. To these ceremonies they conformed without the slightest interruption, during the whole three days' purification. To proceed with the whole details of the ceremony to its close, would be tedious. We close it, only adding, that a small twig of the evergreen was fixed upon the roof of each one of their cabins, with a fragment of the scalps attached to it, and this, as it appeared, to appease the ghosts of their dead. When Boone asked them the meaning of all these long and tedious ceremonies, they answered him by a word which literally imports "holy." The leader and his waiter kept apart and continued the purification three days longer, and the ceremony closed. He observed, that when their war-parties returned from an expedition, and had arrived near their village, they followed their file leader, in what is called _Indian file_, one by one, each a few yards behind the other, to give the procession an appearance of greater length and dignity. If the expedition had been unsuccessful, and they had lost any of their warriors, they returned without ceremony and in noiseless sadness. But if they had been successful, they fired their guns in platoons, yelling, whooping, and insulting their prisoners, if they had made any. Near their town was a large square area, with a war-pole in the centre, expressly prepared for such purposes. To this they fasten their prisoners. They then advance to the house of their leader, remaining without, and standing round his red war-pole, until they determine concerning the fate of their prisoner. If any prisoner should be fortunate enough to break from his pinions, and escape into the house of the chief medicine man, or conductor of the powow, it is an inviolable asylum, and by immemorial usage, the refugee is saved from the fire.