d by Harry with pangs inexpressibly keen. Wounded men looked up
and were softened by his grief: rough women melted as they saw the woe
written on the handsome young face: the hardy old tutor could scarcely
look at him for tears, and grieved for him even more than for his dear
pupil who lay dead under the savage Indian knife.

CHAPTER XIII. Profitless Quest

At every step which Harry Warrington took towards Pennsylvania, the
reports of the British disaster were magnified and confirmed. Those two
famous regiments which had fought in the Scottish and Continental wars,
had fled from an enemy almost unseen, and their boasted discipline and
valour had not enabled them to face a band of savages and a few French
infantry. The unfortunate commander of the expedition had shown the
utmost bravery and resolution. Four times his horse had been shot under
him. Twice he had been wounded, and the last time of the mortal hurt
which ended his life three days after the battle. More than one of
Harry's informants described the action to the poor lad,--the passage of
the river, the long line of advance through the wilderness, the firing
in front, the vain struggle of the men to advance, and the artillery
to clear the way of the enemy; then the ambushed fire from behind every
bush and tree, and the murderous fusillade, by which at least half of
the expeditionary force had been shot down. But not all the General's
suite were killed, Harry heard. One of his aides-de-camp, a Virginian
gentleman, was ill of fever and exhaustion at Dunbar's camp.

One of them--but which? To the camp Harry hurried, and reached it at
length. It was George Washington Harry found stretched in a tent
there, and not his brother. A sharper pain than that of the fever Mr.
Washington declared he felt, when he saw Harry Warrington, and could
give him no news of George.

Mr. Washington did not dare to tell Harry all. For three days after
the fight his duty had been to be near the General. On the fatal 9th of
July, he had seen George go to the front with orders from the chief,
to whose side he never returned. After Braddock himself died, the
aide-de-camp had found means to retrace his course to the field. The
corpses which remained there were stripped and horribly mutilated.
One body he buried which he thought to be George Warrington's. His
own illness was increased, perhaps occasioned, by the anguish which he
underwent in his search for the unhappy young voluntee