ey reached Venango, where they met their
horses. They growing weak, and being given up for packs, Washington put
on an Indian dress and proceeded with the party for three days, when,
committing the conduct of them to Van Braam, he determined to return in
advance. With an Indian match-coat tied around, taking his papers with
him, and a pack on his back and a gun in his hand, he proceeded on foot,
accompanied by Gist. At a place of ill-omened name, Murderingtown, on
the southeast fork of Beaver Creek, they met with a band of French
Indians lying in wait for them, and one of them, being employed as a
guide, fired at either Gist or the major, at the distance of fifteen
steps, but missed. Gist would have killed the Indian at once, but he was
prevented by the prudence of Washington. They, however, captured and
detained him till nine o'clock at night, when releasing him, they
pursued their course during the whole night. Upon reaching the Alleghany
River they employed a whole day in making a raft with the aid only of a
hatchet. Just as the sun was sinking behind the mountains they launched
the raft and undertook to cross: the river was covered with ice, driving
down the impetuous stream, by which, before they were half way over,
they were blocked up and near being sunk. Washington, putting out his
setting-pole to stop the raft, was thrown by the revulsion into the
water, but recovered himself by catching hold of one of the logs. He and
his companion, forced to abandon it, betook themselves to an island near
at hand, where they passed the night, December the twenty-ninth, in wet
clothes and without fire: Gist's hands and feet were frozen. In the
morning they were able to cross on the ice, and they passed two or three
days at a trading-post near the spot where the battle of the Monongahela
was afterwards fought. Here they heard of the recent massacre of a white
family on the banks of the Great Kenhawa. Washington visited Queen
Aliquippa at the mouth of the Youghiogeny. At Gist's house, on the
Monongahela, he purchased a horse, and, separating from this faithful
companion, proceeded to Belvoir, where he rested one day, and arrived
at Williamsburg on the 16th day of January, 1754, after an absence of
eleven weeks, and a journey of fifteen hundred miles, one-half of it
being through an untrodden wilderness. A journal which he kept was
published in the colonial newspapers and in England. For this hazardous
and painful journey he receiv