ore morning, and thus provide a way
for us to escape from this island."

"Well, that is a hopeful view, I confess," replied Gist; "but how the
biting cold can freeze the river without freezing us is incomprehensible
to me."

They made a remarkable night of it, and saved their lives by muscular
exertion. They dashed about in the cold, gathering hope and courage from
hour to hour as the water of the stream congealed harder and harder. In
the morning they crossed the river on the ice, truly thankful to a kind
Providence, which had delivered them from what, to human view, was
inevitable death.

Once upon the other side of the river, they made their way as speedily
as possible to the house of Mr. Frazier, a few miles distant, where they
regaled themselves with fire and food to their hearts' content,
recounting their adventures, and causing all to wonder that they were
still among the living.

Here Washington met twenty warriors, who were going to the southward to
war, but had returned from Great Kenhawa, because there they found a
family of seven people killed and scalped.

"Why did you return?" inquired Washington of a chief.

"For fear the inhabitants might take us to be the murderers," the chief
replied.

"Did the condition of the bodies show that the massacre was recent?"
Washington inquired further.

"Not very recent; the bodies were scattered about, and several of them
were much eaten by hogs," was the chief's answer.

"Have you any suspicions as to who the murderers were?" urged
Washington.

"Certain marks which they left behind showed that the butchery was done
by Indians of the Ottawa nation," was the information given in answer to
his question.

Mr. Frazier informed Washington that an Indian queen, living three miles
distant, had taken offense because he did not call upon her on his way
to the fort. As he was obliged to wait two days for horses, he paid her
a visit and made her a present of a watch-coat.

Washington's final entry in his journal is:

"Tuesday, the 1st of January, 1774, we left Mr. Frazier's house, and
arrived at Mr. Gist's, at Monongahela, the 2d, where I bought a horse
and saddle. The 6th, we met seventeen horses loaded with materials and
stores for a fort at the fork of the Ohio, and the day after, some
families going out to settle. This day we arrived at Will's Creek,
after as fatiguing a journey as it is possible to conceive, rendered so
by excessive bad weather. From the first