ral English gentlemen, generously
impressed with a sense of his painful position, offered him a sum of
money adequate to the supply of his necessities. Unwilling to accept
such favors from the enemies of his country, he refused their kindness,
alleging a motive at once conciliating and magnanimous, that it would
probably never be in his power to repay them. It will be necessary to
contemplate his desolate and forlorn condition, haggard, and without any
adequate clothing in that inclement climate, destitute of money or
means, and at the same time to realize that these men, who so generously
offered him money, were in league with those that were waging war
against the United States, fully to appreciate the patriotism and
magnanimity of this refusal. It is very probable, too, that these men
acted from the interested motive of wishing to bind the hands of this
stern border warrior from any further annoyance to them and their red
allies, by motives of gratitude and a sense of obligation.

It must have been mortifying to his spirit to leave his captive
associates in comfortable habitations and among a civilized people at
Detroit, while he, the single white man of the company, was obliged to
accompany his red masters through the forest in a long and painful
journey of fifteen days, at the close of which he found himself again at
Old Chillicothe, as the town was called.

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 assemb