CHAPTER IX A HERO OF THE COLONIES DO you not think there are a great many interesting stories in American history? I have told you some, and I could tell you many more. I am going to tell you one now, about a brave young man who had a great deal to do with the making of our glorious country. But to reach it we will have to take a step backward over one hundred and fifty years. That is a pretty long step, isn't it? It takes us away back to about the year 1750. But people had been coming into this country for more than a hundred and fifty years before that, and there were a great many white men and women in America at that time.

These people came from Spain and France and Great Britain and Holland and Germany and Sweden and other countries besides. The Spaniards had spread through many regions in the south; the French had gone west by way of the Great Lakes and then down the Mississippi River; but the British were settled close to the ocean, and the country back of them was still forest land, where only wild men and wild beasts lived. That is the way things were situated at the time of the story which I now propose to tell.

The young man I am about to speak of knew almost as much about life in the deep woods as Daniel Boone, the great hunter, of whom I have just told you. Why, when he was only sixteen years old he and another boy went far back into the wild country of Virginia to survey or measure the lands there for a rich land-holder.

The two boys crossed the rough mountains and went into the broad valley of the Shenandoah River, and for months they lived there alone in the broad forest. There were no roads through the woods and they had to make their own paths. When they were hungry they would shoot a wild turkey or a squirrel, or sometimes a deer. They would cook their meat by holding it on a stick over a fire of fallen twigs, and for plates they would cut large chips from a tree with their axe.

All day long they worked in the woods, measuring the land with a long chain. At night they would roll themselves in their blankets and go to sleep under the trees. If the weather was cold they gathered wood and made a fire. Very likely they enjoyed it all, for boys are fond of adventure. Sometimes a party of Indians would come up and be very curious to know what these white boys were doing. But the Indians were peaceful then, and did not try to harm them. One party amused the young surveyors by dancing a war dance before them. A fine time they had in the woods, where they stayed alone for months. When they came back the land-holder was much pleased with their work.

Now let us go on for five years, when the backwoods boy-surveyor had become a young man twenty-one years of age. If we could take ourselves back to the year 1753, and plunge into the woods of western Pennsylvania, we might see this young man again in the deep forest, walking along with his rifle in hand and his pack on his back. He had with him an old frontiersman named Gill, and an Indian who acted as their guide through the forest.

The Indian was a treacherous fellow. One day, when they were not looking, he fired his gun at them from behind a tree. He did not hit either of them. Some men would have shot him, but they did not; they let him go away and walked on alone through the deep woods. They built a fire that night, but they did not sleep before it, for they were afraid the Indian might come back and try to kill them while they were sleeping. So they left it burning and walked on a few miles and went to sleep without a fire.

A few days after that they came to the banks of a wide river. You may find it on your map of Pennsylvania. It is called the Allegheny River, and runs into the Ohio. It had been frozen, for it was winter time; but now the ice was broken and floating swiftly down the stream.

What were they to do? They had to get across that stream. The only plan they could think of was to build a raft out of logs and try to push it through the ice with long poles. This they did, and were soon out on the wild river and among the floating ice.

It was a terrible passage. The great cakes of ice came swirling along and striking like heavy hammers against the raft, almost hard enough to knock it to pieces. One of these heavy ice cakes struck the pole of the young traveler, and gave him such a shock that he fell from the raft into the freezing cold water. He had a hard enough scramble to get back on the raft again.

After a while they reached a little island in the stream and got ashore. There was no wood on it and they could not make a fire, so they had to walk about all night to keep from freezing. The young man was wet to the skin, but he had young blood and did not suffer as much as the older man with him. When morning came they found that the ice was frozen fast between the island and the other shore, so all they had to do was to walk across it.

These were not the only adventures they had, but they got safe back to Virginia, from which they had set out months before.

Do you want to know who this young traveler was? His name was George Washington. That is all I need say. Any one who does not know who George Washington was is not much of an American. But quite likely you do not guess what he was doing in the woods so far away from his home. He had been sent there by the governor of Virginia, and I shall have to tell you why.

But first you must go back with me to an earlier time. The time I mean is when the French were settling in Canada along the St. Lawrence River, and going west over the lakes, and floating in canoes down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Wherever they went they built forts and claimed the country for their king. At the same time the English were settling along the Atlantic shores and pushing slowly back into the country.

You should know that the French and the English were not the best of friends. They had their wars in Europe, and every time they got into war there they began to fight in America also. This made terrible times in the new country. The French had many of the Indians on their side, and they marched through the woods and attacked some of the English towns, and the cruel Indians murdered many of the poor settlers who had done them no harm. There were three such wars, lasting for many years, and a great many innocent men, women and children, who had nothing to do with the wars in Europe, lost their lives. That is what we call war. It is bad enough now, but it was worse still in those days.

The greatest of all the wars between the French and the English was still to come. Between the French forts on the Mississippi and the English settlements on the Atlantic there was a vast forest land, and both the French and the English said it belonged to them. In fact, it did not belong to either of them, but to the Indians; but the white men never troubled themselves about the rights of the old owners of the land.

While the English were talking the French were acting. About 1750 they built two or three forts in the country south of Lake Erie. What they wanted was the Ohio River, with the rich and fertile lands which lay along that stream. Building those forts was the first step. The next step would be to send soldiers to the Ohio and build forts there also.

When the English heard what the French were doing they became greatly alarmed. If they did not do something very quickly they would lose all this great western country. The governor of Virginia wished to know what the French meant to do, and he thought the best way to find out was to ask them. So he chose the young backwoods surveyor, George Washington, and sent him through the great forest to the French forts.

Washington was very young for so important a duty. But he was tall and strong and quick-witted, and he was not afraid of any man or anything. And he knew all about life in the woods. So he was chosen, and far west he went over plain and mountain, now on horseback and now on foot, following the Indian trails through the forest, until at last he came to the French forts.

The French officers told him that they had come there to stay. They were not going to give up their forts to please the governor of Virginia. And Washington's quick eye saw that they were getting canoes ready to go down the streams to the Ohio River the next spring. This was the news the young messenger was taking back to the governor when he had his adventures with the Indian and the ice.

If any of you know anything about how wars are brought on, you may well think there was soon going to be war in America. Both parties wanted the land, and both were ready to fight to get it, and when people feel that way fighting is not far off.

Indeed, the spring of 1754 was not far advanced before both sides were on the move. Washington had picked out a beautiful spot for a fort. This was where the two rivers which form the Ohio come together. On that spot the city of Pittsburg now stands; but then it was a very wild place.

As soon as the governor heard Washington's report he sent a party of men in great haste to build a fort at that point. But in a short time a larger party of French came down the Allegheny River in canoes and drove the English workmen away. Then they finished the fort for themselves and called it Fort Duquesne.

Meanwhile Washington was on his way back. A force of four hundred Virginians had been sent out under an officer named Colonel Frye. But the colonel died on the march, and young Washington, then only twenty-two years old, found himself at the head of a regiment of soldiers, and about to start a great war. Was it not a difficult position for so young a man? Not many men of that age would have known what to do, but George Washington was not an ordinary man.

While the Virginians were marching west, the French were marching south, and it was not long before they came together. A party of French hid in a thicket to watch the English, and Washington, thinking they were there for no good, ordered his men to fire. They did so, and the leader of the French was killed. This was the first shot in the coming war.

But the youthful commander soon found that the French were too strong for him. He built a sort of fort at a place called Great Meadows, and named it Fort Necessity. It was hardly finished before the French and Indians came swarming all around it and a severe fight began.

The Virginians fought well, but the French were too strong, and fired into the fort till Washington had to surrender. This took place on July 4, 1754, just twenty-two years before the American Declaration of Independence. Washington and his men were allowed to march home with their arms, and the young colonel was very much praised when he got home, for everybody thought he had done his work in the best possible way.

When the news of this battle crossed the ocean there was great excitement in England and France, and both countries sent soldiers to America. Those from England were under a general named Braddock, a man who knew all about fighting in England, but knew nothing about fighting in America. And what was worse, he would let nobody tell him. Washington generously tried to do so, but he got snubbed by the proud British general for his pains.

After a while away marched General Braddock, with his British soldiers in their fine red coats. Washington went with him with a body of Virginians dressed in plain colony clothes. On and on they went, through the woods and over the mountains, cutting down trees and opening a road for their wagons, and bravely beating their drums and waving their flags. At length they came near Fort Duquesne, the drums still beating, the flags still flying, the gun barrels glittering in the bright sunshine.

"Let me go ahead with my Virginians," said Washington. "They know all about Indian fighting."

"That for your Indians!" said Braddock, snapping his fingers. "They will not stay in their hiding places long when my men come up."

Soon after they came into a narrow place, with steep banks and thick bushes all around. And suddenly loud Indian war-whoops and the crack of guns came from those bushes. Not a man could be seen, but bullets flew like hail-stones among the red-coats. The soldiers fired back, but they wasted their bullets on the bushes. Washington and his men ran into the woods and got behind trees like the Indians, but Braddock would not let his men do the same, and they were shot down like sheep. At length General Braddock fell wounded, and then his brave red-coats turned and ran for their lives. Very likely not a man of them would have got away if Washington and his men had not kept back the French and Indians.

This defeat was a bad business for the poor settlers, for the savage redskins began murdering them on all sides, and during all the rest of the war Washington was kept busy fighting with these Indians. Not till four years afterwards was he able to take Fort Duquesne from the French.

Then another body of men was sent through the woods and over the mountains to capture this fort. But their general did as Braddock had done before him, spending so much time cutting a highroad through the woods that the whole season passed away and he was ready to turn and march back. Then Washington, who was with him, asked permission to go forward with his rangers. The general told him to go and he hurried through the woods and to the fort. When he came near it the French took to their boats and paddled off down the river, so that Washington took the fort without firing a shot.

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