the pole that it jerked me out into ten feet water; but I fortunately saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft-logs. Notwithstanding all our efforts, we could not get to either shore, but were obliged, as we were near an island, to quit our raft and make to it. The cold was so extremely severe that Mr. Gist had all his fingers and some of his toes frozen, and the water was shut up so hard that we found no difficulty in getting off the island on the ice in the morning, and went to Mr. Frazier's."

Here they succeeded in getting horses, and in a few days Washington was at Williamsburg and reporting to the governor. He had not merely made a very difficult journey in the depth of winter and brought back an answer to the governor's letter; but he had made the most minute observations of the condition and plans of the French; he had also strengthened the friendship of the English and Indians; and by patient, unwearied, and resolute attention to the object of his mission, he had brought back a fund of extremely valuable information for the use of the colony. There could be no doubt in the minds of his friends, after reading his journal, that here was a man who could be depended upon. They had known him as a prudent, careful, economical, deliberate, rather silent young fellow, whose judgment was worth having; but I doubt if they had fully perceived before what indomitable courage

he had, how fearless he was in the midst of dan. ger, how keen and wary in his dealing with an enemy, and how full of resources and pluck when difficulties arose. Here was no sunshine soldier.

CHAPTER IX.

FORT DUQUESNE AND FORT NECESSITY.

THE House of Burgesses was not in session when Washington made his report to Governor Dinwiddie. But no time was to be lost, and the energetic governor and council issued orders to erect a fort at once upon the point of land at the fork of the Ohio, which Washington had recommended as the best site. Washington was to have command of the two companies of men who were to be enlisted for this purpose, but he was to remain for the present at Alexandria, organizing the expedition, while his second in command, Captain Trent, a trader and frontiersman, went forward with such men as he could raise in the back settlements, and began the construction of the fort.

Lord Fairfax took a lively interest in his young friend's business, but it was not so easy to enlist men for an expedition of this kind, as it was to raise and drill a company of militia, which, by the laws of the colony, could not be marched more than five miles from the boundary line of the colony. Throughout the winter months Washington was hard at work raising his company and

putting them in readiness. He had a sorry lot of volunteers to work with; they were for the most part shiftless fellows who had nothing else to do, and scarcely anything to their backs. They were good-natured, however, and ready to buy clothing if the major would pay them their wages; but the major had no money of his own to advance, and he had hard work getting any from the government. He had to reason with his men, humor them, and fit them for service as well as he could. It was capital preparation for a kind of work which he had to do on a large scale afterward.

The governor, meanwhile, had been stirring up the governors of the other colonies, and had called the burgesses together. He could not make every one feel his own need of action; but he persuaded the burgesses to vote a sum of money, and thus was able to enlarge the military force to six companies. There was a proposition to put Washington in command of the entire force; but the young major was reluctant to assume such a charge, when he had had so little experience in handling troops. "I have too sincere a love for my country," he said, "to undertake that which may tend to the prejudice of it."

Accordingly Joshua Fry, an English gentleman of education, was commissioned as colonel, and Washington was given the second place, with rank of lieutenant-colonel. Fry now remained at Alexandria and Washington pushed forward to Wills

Creek, with about a hundred and fifty men, intending to join Trent and complete the fort which he had begun. He reached Wills Creek with his ragged, half-drilled men on April 20, and soon received a very disagreeable piece of news.

Sud

Trent, for some reason, had left the fort which he was building, and his second in command having also absented himself, the next highest officer, Ensign Ward, was left in command of the company, which numbered forty-one men. denly there had appeared a multitude of canoes and other craft coming down the Alleghany. It was a large French force dispatched by the governor of Canada to occupy the same point of land. Ward, of course, could do nothing. He was permitted to withdraw with his men, and the French at once pulled down the fort which Trent had begun, and set to work building another and larger one which they named Fort Duquesne. Here, after the wars of the next thirty years were over, the city of Pittsburgh began to rise.

The taking of the post by an armed force was like a declaration of war on the part of France. It was the beginning of the great seven years' war between France and England which ended in the fall of France in America, and led by swift steps to the independence of the colonies. By a strange coincidence, the nearest English force was under the command of a young Virginian officer of militia, only twenty-two years old, who was after