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 we