h, active boy
of fourteen, who dearly loved outdoor life. There was a strong contrast
between the old lord and the youthful Virginian, but they soon became
close friends, riding out fox-hunting together and growing intimate in
other ways.

Laurence Washington, George's elder brother, who lived at Mount Vernon,
had married a daughter of William Fairfax, and that brought the Mount
Vernon and Belvoir families much together, so that when young George was
visiting his brother he was often at Belvoir. Lord Fairfax grew to like
him so much that he resolved to give him some important work to do. He
saw that the boy was strong, manly, and quick-witted, and anxious to be
doing something for himself, and as George had made some study of
surveying, he decided to employ him at this.

Lord Fairfax's Virginia estate, as we have said, was very large. The
best-known part of it lay east, but it also crossed the Blue Ridge
Mountains, and ran over into the beautiful valley beyond, which the
Knights of the Golden Horseshoe had visited more than thirty years
before. This splendid valley was still largely in a wild state, with few
inhabitants besides the savage Indians and wild beasts. Before it could
be fairly opened to settlers it must be measured by the surveyor's chain
and mapped out so that it would be easy to tell where any tract was
located. It was this that Lord Fairfax asked young Washington to do, and
which the active boy gladly consented to undertake, for he liked
nothing better than wild life and adventure in the wilderness, and here
was the chance to have a delightful time in a new and beautiful country,
an opportunity that would warm the heart of any live and healthy boy.

This is a long introduction to the story of Washington's wildwood
outing, but no doubt you will like to know what brought it about. It was
in the early spring of 1748 that the youthful surveyor set out on his
ride, the blood bounding warmly in his veins as he thought of the new
sensations and stirring adventures which lay before him. He was not
alone. George William Fairfax, a son of the master of Belvoir, went with
him, a young man of twenty-two. Washington was then just sixteen, young
enough to be in high spirits at the prospect before him. He brought his
surveyors' instruments, and they both bore guns as well, for they looked
for some fine sport in the woods.

The valley beyond the mountains was not the land of mystery which it had
been thirty-four year