mps deeper, the rocks more massive, the trees
taller and more numerous, the torrents more rapid, the days more hot
and sultry, and the men and horses more enfeebled by poor and scanty
food. You will not wonder, then, that they were nearly two weeks in
reaching Mr. Gist's plantation on the Monongahela, a distance of but
fifteen miles.

But hardly had they pitched their tents, and thrown themselves on the
grass to snatch a little rest, when there came the disheartening
intelligence, brought in by their Indian spies, that Capt. de Villiers
had been seen to sally from Fort Duquesne but a few hours before, at
the head of a force of five hundred French and four hundred Indians,
and must by that time be within a few miles of the Virginia camp. For
three hundred weary and hungry men to wait and give battle to a force
three times their number, fresh and well fed, was a thing too absurd
to be thought of for a single moment. Washington, therefore, as their
only chance of safety, ordered a hasty retreat, hoping that they might
be able to reach the settlements on Wills's Creek before the enemy
could overtake him. The retreat, however, was any thing but a hasty
one; for the poor half-famished horses were at last no longer able to
drag the heavy cannon and carry the heavy baggage. Moved with pity for
the lean and tottering beasts, Washington dismounted from his fine
charger, and gave him for a pack-horse; which humane example was
promptly followed by his officers. Yet even this was not enough: so,
while some of the jaded men loaded their backs with the baggage, the
rest, as jaded, dragged the artillery along the stony roads with
ropes, rather than that it should be left behind to fall into the
hands of the enemy. For this good service, rendered so willingly in
that hour of sore distress, they went not unrewarded by their generous
young commander.

Capt. Mackay and his company of Independents had, at Washington's
request, come up a little while before, and now joined in the retreat.
But they joined in nothing else; for, pluming themselves upon their
greater respectability as soldiers of his Britannic majesty, they lent
not a helping hand in this hour of pressing need, although the danger
that lurked behind threatened all alike. They marched along, these
coxcombs, daintily picking their way over the smoothest roads, and too
genteel to be burdened with any thing but their clean muskets and tidy
knapsacks. This ill-timed and insolent be