llaway, were still out; and two of the
salt-makers had returned to Boonesborough, with salt and the news that
all was prosperous at the Licks. This left twenty-seven to march with
the Shawnees.

As Daniel Boone had hoped, instead of continuing on to Boonesborough
the Shawnees hastened northward, to display their triumph in their town
of Little Chillicothe on the Little Miami River in southwestern Ohio.
Twenty-seven prisoners, without the loss of a scalp! And American
prisoners were worth money, these days. The British father at Detroit
was paying $100 for each one brought in to him.

Knowing this, the Boone men were encouraged to believe that none of
them would be tortured; for their bodies were more valuable than their
scalps.

It was a ten days' journey, in very cold weather, to Little
Chillicothe. Daniel Boone says that on the way his party "received as
good treatment as prisoners could expect from savages." The good
treatment was not broken. He recalled that last year James Harrod, of
Harrod's Fort, had wounded a Shawnee, then had nursed him in a cave and
let him go. Possibly this was one reason for the kindness of the
Shawnees.

At any rate, he was given the name Big Turtle, because he was so
strongly built, and was adopted as a son by Chief Black Fish. Sixteen
of the men likewise were then adopted, by chiefs and old women and
warriors.

Big Turtle tried to bear his new honors modestly. He and the others
worried considerably about their families, down at Boonesborough. What
would be the feelings there, when nobody returned from the Blue Licks!
Still, they could not help themselves. Big Turtle counseled patience,
and set the example. He was a silent kind of a man, who bided his time
until the right opportunity should come.

On March 10, about three weeks after their arrival at Chillicothe, he,
and the ten men who had not been adopted were taken north to Detroit.
There the ten men were sold, for $100 apiece, in goods. Big Turtle was
proudly placed on exhibition, but he was not for sale.

The fame of Daniel Boone of Kentucky had spread widely. Now here he
was--a tall, strongly-framed, slightly stooped man, with a long and
noiseless stride and a low and quiet voice. He wore buckskin. His
face was high-cheeked and thin, his nose a little hooked, his chin firm.

The lieutenant-governor at Detroit, General Hamilton, offered Black
Fish $500 for him. Black Fish refused.

"I will not sell. He is