, they answered him by a word which he says meant _holy_.

As this party had brought in no prisoners, he did not now witness their
horrible mode of torture. Before he left them, however, he saw enough of
their awful cruelty in this way. Sometimes the poor prisoner would be
tied to a stake, a pile of green wood placed around him, fire applied,
and the poor wretch left to his horrible fate, while, amid shouts and
yells, the Indians departed. Sometimes he would be forced to run the
gauntlet between two rows of Indians, each one striking at him with a
club until he fell dead. Others would be fastened between two stakes,
their arms and legs stretched to each of them, and then quickly burnt by
a blazing fire. A common mode was to pinion the arms of the prisoner, and
then tie one end of a grape-vine around his neck, while the other was
fastened to the stake. A fire was then kindled, and the poor wretch would
walk the circle; this gave the savages the comfort of seeing the poor
creature literally roasting, while his agony was prolonged. Perhaps this
was the most popular mode, too, because all the women and children could
join in it. They were there, with their bundles of dry sticks, to keep
the fire blazing, and their long switches, to beat the prisoner. Fearful
that their victim might die too soon, and thus escape their cruelty, the
women would knead cakes of clay and put them on the skull of the poor
sufferer, that the fire might not reach his brain and instantly kill him.
As the poor frantic wretch would run round the circle, they would yell,
dance, and sing, and beat him with their switches, until he fell
exhausted. At other times, a poor prisoner would be tied, and then
scalding water would be poured upon him from time to time till he died.
It was amazing, too, to see how the warriors would sometimes bear these
tortures. Tied to the stake, they would chant their war-songs, threaten
their captors with the awful vengeance of their tribe, boast of how many
of their nation they had scalped and tell their tormentors how they
might increase their torture. In the midst of the fire they would stand
unflinching, and die without changing a muscle. It was their glory to die
in this way; they felt that they disappointed their enemies in their last
triumph.

While Boone was with them, a noted warrior of one of the western tribes,
with which the Shawanese were at war, was brought in as a captive. He was
at once condemned, stripped, fast