CHAPTER IX
A WHITE BOY ADOPTED BY THE INDIANS
It already has appeared that Conrad's wish that he might be adopted bythe Indians, a thought which comforted him as he lay bound on thefirst night of his captivity, had been realized; also that he had beenadopted by the old chief, Ahneota, who now wished to adopt Rodney.
As Conrad's experiences were such as the other lad might expect,should he finally yield to the old Indian's desire, a brief account ofthem may be found interesting.
Following the night of Conrad's capture the party travelled for twodays in a westerly direction. Just at dusk on the second day they cameto a small river. Here canoes were brought from hiding and all, saveone Indian who swam across with the horse, paddled to the other sidein the canoes.
Arriving on the other bank several guns were discharged, followed bylusty yells that soon were responded to with like yells from over awooded ridge near the river. Within a few minutes squaws and papoosescame running to meet them.
Though Conrad was a stolid lad his pulse quickened, for he had heardmany tales of tortures inflicted by the savages. The Indian dogssnapped at his heels; the children and some of the squaws tormentedhim by pinching, slapping and threatening, to all of which the menpaid no heed and the boy tried to appear indifferent.
As they came near the village all the spectators formed in two lines,between which he was ordered to run.
He was to run the gauntlet! For an instant his heart stopped beating,the next, a sharp blow from a stick set the blood inherited from abrave ancestry tingling through his veins.
Lowering his head he charged, as a mad bull charges, warding off whatblows he might with his sturdy arms. He was thwacked with clubs,jabbed with sharpened sticks, tripped and pommelled till it seemedthat not an inch of his body escaped. One old hag threw a handful ofsand in his eyes and he stumbled, but crawled the few feet remainingbetween where he fell and the wigwam toward which he had run. Onceinside, his tormentors left him. He was so sore that he almost wishedhe could die. After a time he slept and thought his mother came tocomfort him, but it was only a young squaw who brought him food. Thenone of the men came and the boy complained of the rough treatment. TheIndian said that running the gauntlet was the custom, that he had beenbrave and the Indians would adopt him into the tribe, and Conradcould have cried for joy, only that he was a boy who did not cry.
Conrad never forgot the day he was formally adopted into the tribe.First in the ceremony was washing away his white blood and, it seemedto the boy, at least a part of his skin as well.
In full view of the assembled tribe, whose ideas of modesty differedmuch from those of civilized people, he was stripped and led into apool in the river and there thrust under the water and then stood uponhis feet and scoured with sand. This was the most thorough scrubbingConrad ever was to have. Life with the Vuysens had not been conduciveto cleanliness and Indians in those days were not noted for bathing.
Following the bath came the process of greasing him from head to footand decorating his face with pigments, after which he was clad inbreech-clout and moccasins. This done, he was seated upon the bank fora no less severe ordeal.
This consisted in plucking out the hair of his head, all but a tuft,or scalp lock, to which coloured feathers were tied. An Indian did thework, dipping his fingers in ashes that he might get better hold.Conrad never winced or made outcry throughout the various ordeals.
A blanket was given to the boy, who was then led into a wigwam, wherean old Indian conducted ceremonies, on which Conrad looked with awe,though understanding but little of them. Their solemnity, however,impressed him deeply and it is very doubtful whether, after they wereover, he would have dared run away had he been so inclined.
The boy's eyes were light blue and his hair was yellow; but hischeekbones were high, his face stolid, so that now, when paint andgrease had been added to sunburn, and he stood clothed in full Indiangarb, no one would think him other than an Indian but for thosetell-tale blue eyes.
The Wyandottes, of which people he now considered himself one,occupied territory in what is now the north-central portion of Ohio.
The year was 1772, not long ago in history, but measured by change,very long ago. Then, the country was little different from what it hadbeen for thousands of years. Now, it seems another world and the mapof it shows great cities where were forests and connecting these arewhat at first resemble spiders' webs, but which are highways. Fewwhite men then came to that region, where now few red men are seen,indeed none living the life they then lived. Such whites as came werea few French voyageurs and Jesuit missionaries and hunters and tradersfrom the English colonies. The traders did not scruple to exchange,for valuable furs, guns, tomahawks and ammunition, which they knewwould be turned against the whites of the frontier in time of war; andmany of them sold the savages liquor, knowing an Indian would sell hissoul for it and having drank it would become a fiend incarnate.
On the south flowed the Ohio River, along which white men werepushing their way, and settling on land in what is now Kentucky andTennessee, and looking with covetous eyes on the land between thatriver and the lakes, but which the Indians claimed had been reservedto them by treaty. The shrewder among the Indian leaders foresaw thetime when they would have to fight and overwhelm the intruders orsubmit to their hunting grounds being spoiled by the white man. Thisfeeling of uneasiness was spreading among the tribes, and the youngerwarriors were eager to fight and not infrequently were guilty ofmarauding expeditions.
One day a party of young braves had returned from a hunting expeditiondown in what was called "the dark and bloody ground," Kentucky, whichthe Indians of the North and the Cherokees and Chickasaws of the Southmade common use of for a hunting place. Frequent were the bloodyskirmishes fought by these hostile tribes in this territory, thoughnone of the Indians made permanent homes there. This party had broughtback several scalps and among them Conrad noted two torn from theheads of white men. Ahneota had looked grave and the boy shuddered,and for the first time his dreams about his future were not as brightas they had been.
One day there had come to the village a Frenchman, clad in thepicturesque garb of a voyageur, wearing a gaudy handkerchief about hishead and a gay capote, or blanket coat which the savages much admired.With him was a half-breed woman and Louis, then not quite ten yearsold. Conrad thought this boy the most attractive person he had evermet and the little fellow, clad in the softest of deerskin tastefullyornamented and wearing a jaunty cap of the same material, was indeed ahandsome lad. Conrad had attached himself to the boy as does a dog tohis master. When Rodney arrived, and the little fellow preferred himto his former companion, then Conrad, who in one year of the wild lifehad become an Indian in looks, became one at heart.