ew
triumphs. Gradually one by one the reclining members of the band rose
and circled about the fire in a slow swinging step. Two Indians at a
little distance beat upon a rough drum made of wood covered with
deerskin and half filled with water.

As the chief's voice rose higher and higher and the music grew louder
and louder, more and more men joined the dance, until finally all the
tribe was dancing about the fire, and their pace grew ever faster. Now,
from time to time, one would leap in the air uttering savage cries and
yells, then another, and finally all seemed absolutely lost in a sort of
demon's frenzy. Suddenly, at a sharp command from the chief, the dance
and the music ceased, and the warriors came up to their white friends
smiling and asking for more whiskey.

The scene made a deep impression on George Washington. So far he had
lived only among white people, and knew little of the Indian in his
native haunts, but from the date of this war-dance he began to study
the red man's character, and before long he had become an expert in the
art of dealing with these people.

For a month George and young Fairfax traveled through the land that
belonged to the latter's uncle, and at the end of that time the boy had
made practically a complete survey of the region. By the middle of April
he was back at Belvoir. His plans were examined and approved, and he was
well paid for his services.

So pleased was the Englishman with George's work that he used his
efforts to get him the appointment of Public Surveyor. The position
pleased the boy, who at once started to make maps of the whole region
lying along the Potomac. He divided his time between his mother's simple
house, the big house which his older half-brother, Lawrence, had built
at Mount Vernon, and Lord Fairfax's seat at Belvoir. The strongest
friendship had grown up between the nobleman and the boy, and George
unquestionably profited greatly by his talks with this man, who was very
fond of literature and art, and who had known the most distinguished men
and women of Europe.

Belvoir had a fine library, and George spent much of his spare time
there reading with special eagerness the history of England and
Addison's essays in the _Spectator_. His only schooling had been that
which he had gained at a very primitive log schoolhouse, where an old
man named Hobby, originally a bondsman, taught the children of the
plantations reading, writing, and arithmetic. George, howe