heated man's
blood to the exclusion of all else Virginia had rung with that name.

La Salle had ventured there in the century before, seeking a mythical
river running west to China. Boone and the Long Hunters had trod the
trails of mystery and brought back corroborative tales of wonder and
Ophir richness.

Of these things, General Washington and Captain Caleb Parish were
talking on a day when the summer afternoon held its breath in hot and
fragrant stillness over the house at Mount Vernon.

On a map the general indicated the southward running ranges of the
Alleghanies, and the hinterland of wilderness.

"Beyond that line," he said, gravely, "lies the future! Those who have
already dared the western trails and struck their roots into the soil
must not be deserted, sir. They are fiercely self-reliant and
liberty-loving, but if they be not sustained we risk their loyalty and
our back doors will be thrown open to defeat."

Parish bowed. "And I, sir," he questioned, "am to stand guard in these
forests?"

George Washington swept out his hand in a gesture of reluctant
affirmation.

"Behind the mountains our settlers face a long purgatory of peril and
privation, Captain Parish," came the sober response. "Without powder,
lead, and salt, they cannot live. The ways must be held open.
Communication must remain intact. Forts must be maintained--and the two
paths are here--and here."

His finger indicated the headwaters of the Ohio and the ink-marked spot
where the steep ridges broke at Cumberland Gap.

Parish's eyes narrowed painfully as he stood looking over the stretches
of Washington's estate. The vista typified many well-beloved things that
he was being called upon to leave behind him--ordered acres, books, the
human contacts of kindred association. It was when he thought of his
young wife and his daughter that he flinched. 'Twould go hard with them,
who had been gently nurtured.

"Do women and children go, too?" inquired Parish, brusquely.

"There are women and children there," came the swift reply. "We seek to
lay foundations of permanence and without the family we build on
quicksand."

* * * * *

Endless barriers of wilderness peaks rose sheer and forbidding about a
valley through which a narrow river flashed its thin loop of water. Down
the steep slopes from a rain-darkened sky hung ragged fringes of
cloud-streamer and fog-wraith.

Toward a settlement, somewhere westward thr