le
Boeuf. That officer's reply was brief: his orders were to hold the place
and drive all the English from it. The French avowed their intention of
taking possession of the Ohio. And with this rough answer the messenger
from Virginia had to return through danger and difficulty, across lonely
forest and frozen river, shaping his course by the compass, and camping
at night in the snow by the forest fires.

Harry Warrington cursed his ill-fortune that he had been absent from
home on a cock-fight, when he might have had chance of sport so much
nobler; and on his return from his expedition, which he had conducted
with an heroic energy and simplicity, Major Washington was a greater
favourite than ever with the lady of Castlewood. She pointed him out
as a model to both her sons. "Ah, Harry!" she would say, "think of you,
with your cock-fighting and your racing-matches, and the Major away
there in the wilderness, watching the French, and battling with the
frozen rivers! Ah, George! learning may be a very good thing, but I wish
my eldest son were doing something in the service of his country!"

"I desire no better than to go home and seek for employment, ma'am,"
says George. "You surely will not have me serve under Mr. Washington, in
his new regiment, or ask a commission from Mr. Dinwiddie?"

"An Esmond can only serve with the king's commission," says Madam, "and
as for asking a favour from Mr. Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie, I would
rather beg my bread."

Mr. Washington was at this time raising such a regiment as, with the
scanty pay and patronage of the Virginian government, he could get
together, and proposed, with the help of these men-of-war, to put a more
peremptory veto upon the French invaders than the solitary ambassador
had been enabled to lay. A small force under another officer, Colonel
Trent, had been already despatched to the west, with orders to fortify
themselves so as to be able to resist any attack of the enemy. The
French troops, greatly outnumbering ours, came up with the English
outposts, who were fortifying themselves at a place on the confines of
Pennsylvania where the great city of Pittsburg now stands. A Virginian
officer with but forty men was in no condition to resist twenty times
that number of Canadians, who appeared before his incomplete works. He
was suffered to draw back without molestation; and the French, taking
possession of his fort, strengthened it, and christened it by the name
of the Can