ils 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