nel. Trusting
that he had out-travelled pursuit, he encamped on the border of the
river; still it was an anxious night, and he was up at daybreak to
devise some means of reaching the opposite bank. No other mode
presented itself than by a raft, and to construct this they had but
one poor hatchet. With this they set resolutely to work and labored
all day, but the sun went down before their raft was finished. They
launched it, however, and getting on board, endeavored to propel it
across with setting poles. Before they were half way over the raft
became jammed between cakes of ice, and they were in imminent peril.
Washington planted his pole on the bottom of the stream, and leaned
against it with all his might, to stay the raft until the ice should
pass by. The rapid current forced the ice against the pole with such
violence that he was jerked into the water, where it was at least ten
feet deep, and only saved himself from being swept away and drowned by
catching hold of one of the raft logs.

It was now impossible with all their exertions to get to either shore;
abandoning the raft therefore, they got upon an island, near which
they were drifting. Here they passed the night exposed to intense
cold, by which the hands and feet of Mr. Gist were frozen. In the
morning they found the drift ice wedged so closely together, that they
succeeded in getting from the island to the opposite side of the
river; and before night were in comfortable quarters at the house of
Frazier, an Indian trader, at the mouth of Turtle Creek, on the
Monongahela.

Leaving Frazier's on the 1st of January, where they had been detained
two or three days endeavoring to procure horses, they arrived on the
2d at Gist's residence, sixteen miles from the Monongahela. Here they
separated, and Washington, having purchased a horse, continued his
homeward course. He reached Williamsburg on the 16th of January, where
he delivered to Governor Dinwiddie the letter of the French
commandant, and made him a full report of the events of his mission.

We have been minute in our account of this expedition as it was an
early test and development of the various talents and characteristics
of Washington. The prudence, sagacity, resolution, firmness, and
self-devotion manifested by him throughout, pointed him out, not
merely to the governor, but to the public at large, as one eminently
fitted, notwithstanding his youth, for important trusts involving
civil as well as mil