and making their way into the fertile valleys beyond.

The Indians who roamed over the country found themselves between two fires. They saw very plainly that if these two foreign nations kept increasing their foothold, there would be little room left for themselves. They saw, too, that the French and the English would not settle down in peace together, nor divide the land between them. Nor were the Indians wholly at peace among themselves. One tribe fought another, and each was very ready to call in the aid of the white man.

So the tribes divided. The French were very willing to have certain Indians on their side, when they should come to blows with the English; the English sought to make friends with other Indians who were the enemies of those that had formed alliance with the French; and a tribe would sometimes change its position, siding now with the French, now with the English.

The region of country which was the prize most eagerly contended for by both nations was that watered by the Ohio River and its tributaries. As yet, there were no white settlements in this region; but both French and English traders made their way into it and carried on a brisk business with the Indians. The two nations now set to work in characteristic fashion to get control of the Ohio Valley. The French began to build forts in commanding positions; the English formed a great

land company, the object of which was to send out emigrants from England and the Atlantic colonies to settle in the Ohio Valley, plant farms, and so gain a real possession.

The company thus formed was called the Ohio Company. It was planned in 1748, by Thomas Lee, a Virginian gentleman, who associated with himself thirteen other gentlemen, - one, a London merchant who was to act as the company's agent in England; the others, persons living in Virginia and Maryland. They obtained a charter from the king, and the grant of five hundred thousand acres of land lying chiefly south of the Ohio River and west of the Alleghany Mountains, between the Monongahela and Kanawha rivers. These gentlemen reasoned that the natural passage to the Ohio country lay by the Potomac River and through the breaks in the mountain ranges caused by those branches of the Ohio River which took their rise in Virginia. So they intended that the stream of trade which flowed into the Ohio Valley should take its rise in Maryland and Virginia, and benefit the people of those colonies; and in order to carry out their plans, they proposed to build a road for wagons from the Potomac to the Monongahela.

George Washington's elder brothers Lawrence and Augustine, were both among the original members of the Ohio Company, and when, shortly after its formation, Mr. Lee died, Lawrence Wash

ington became the principal manager. He took a very strong interest in the enterprise, and was particularly desirous of settling a colony of Germans on the company's land. The plans of the Ohio Company were freely discussed at Mount Vernon, and George Washington, who had made himself well acquainted with much of the country which lay on the way to the Ohio, was an interested listener and talker.

There was other talk, however, besides that of trade and settlement. The French were everywhere making preparations to assert their ownership of the western country, and the colonies took the alarm and began also to make ready for possible war. Virginia was divided into military districts, each of which was under the charge of an adjutant-general, whose business it was to attend to the organization and equipment of the militia. George Washington was only nineteen years of age, but his brother Lawrence had such confidence in his ability that he secured for him the appointment of adjutant-general for the military district which included Mount Vernon.

To hold such a post, one must be both a drillmaster and something of a tactician, as well as a natural leader and good manager. Washington went to work with a will to qualify himself for his place. His brother had served long enough in the army to be able to give him some help, and Lawrence's comrades in the West Indies cam

paigns could give even more explicit aid. One of these, Major Muse, was a frequent guest at Mount Vernon, and now undertook to teach George Washington the art of war. He lent the young adjutant military treatises, and drilled him in manual exercises. A Dutch soldier, Jacob Van Braam, who was making a living as fencing-master, gave him lessons in the sword exercise, and Washington had the opportunity afterward of doing his old teacher a good turn by securing him a position in the army of which he was himself an officer.

While he was in the midst of all this military exercise, which was very well suited to the mind of one who had been captain of his school company, he was suddenly obliged to drop his sword and manual, and make ready for a voyage. Lawrence Washington, whose health had been impaired by his campaigning in the West Indies, was ill with consumption; and his physicians ordered him to take a voyage to the West Indies again, this time to recover, if possible, the health which he had lost there when a soldier. He proposed to pass the winter at Barbadoes, and to take his brother George with him.

The two brothers sailed near the end of September, 1751. George Washington, with his methodical habits, at once began a diary, which he kept on the voyage and during his stay on the island. As two gentlemen from Virginia, they were seized

upon at once by the English officers and other residents, and treated with great hospitality. The people who live in a small and isolated settlement like that of Barbadoes are generally very glad to meet some one whom they have not seen every day the year around. So the two brothers dined. with this and that new acquaintance, and George, being robust and not needing to spare himself, walked, rode, and drove over the island.

Unfortunately, in the midst of his pleasure, he was seized with small-pox and obliged to keep by himself during the last part of his stay. Vaccination was not understood at that time, and there was nothing to be done, if the small-pox were about, but to have it and have it as lightly as possible. Washington had a strong constitution, and bore this trying illness well, but he carried some slight scars from the disease through the rest of his life.

In his diary he recorded briefly the events of each day of his journey, but at the end of his stay, he filled a few pages with general reflections upon the life on which he had looked, and which was so different from that of Virginia. He was of a frugal mind himself, and was amazed at the shiftless ways of the people of Barbadoes. "How wonderful," he says, "that such people should be in debt, and not be able to indulge themselves in all the luxuries as well as necessaries of life. Yet so it happens. Estates are often alienated