ruth there might be in this report. When they had rowed
about ten miles, their Indian guide, after sulking for a little while,
laid his oar across the canoe, and refused to go further. At first,
this behavior appeared to them a little queer; but they were not long
in discovering that it was only a way the cunning red rascal had of
higgling to get more pay for his services. After some pretty sharp
bargaining, Col. Washington promised to give him his old watch-coat
and a ruffled shirt if he would go on; upon which, without more ado,
he picked up his oar, and for the rest of the trip steered away
blithely enough. You can well imagine what an uncommon swell this
savage dandy, with his bare red legs, must have cut, a few days after,
in his civilized finery, among the copper-cheeked belles of the woods.
By the time they had rowed twenty miles further, Washington was
satisfied, that, owing to the rocks and rapids, a passage down this
river in the shallow canoes of the Indians was next to impossible.

Returning to camp, he soon afterwards received word from his old
friend and ally, the Half King, that a party of French had been seen
coming from the direction of Fort Duquesne, who were in all
likelihood, by that time, somewhere in his close neighborhood. Upon
hearing this, Washington deemed it prudent to fall back a few miles to
the Great Meadows, a beautiful little plain, situated in the midst of
woods and hills, and divided by a rivulet. Here he threw up strong
intrenchments, cleared away the undergrowth, and prepared what he
called "a charming field for an encounter." Shortly after, Mr. Gist,
whom you well remember, came into camp, from his home on the
Monongahela, with the tidings, that a party of French had been at his
house on the day before, whom, from their appearance, he believed to
be spies. Washington sent out some of his men on wagon-horses to beat
the woods; who came in about dusk, without having, however, discovered
any traces of the enemy. About nine o'clock that same night, an Indian
runner came from the Half King with word, that some of his hunters had
late that evening seen the tracks of two Frenchmen not five miles
distant; and that, if Col. Washington would join him with some of his
men, they would set out early in the morning in quest of the lurking
foe.

Taking with him about forty men, and leaving the rest to guard the
intrenchments, Washington set out forthwith for the Indian camp. Their
way led them th