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and with a few servants and pack-horses he struck straight into the forests in the middle of bleak November. It was the 11th of December before the jaded party rode, in the cold dusk, into the drenched and miry clearing where the dreary little fort stood that held the French commander. Through two hundred and fifty miles and more of forest they had dragged themselves over swollen rivers, amidst an almost ceaseless fall of rain or snow, with not always an Indian trail, even, or the beaten track of the bison, to open the forest growth for their flagging horses, and on the watch always against savage treachery." It had become plain enough before they reached their destination what answer they should get from the French. Sixty miles nearer home than these lonely headquarters of the French commander at Fort Le Boeuf they had come upon an outpost where the French colors were to be seen flying from a house from which an English trader had been driven out, and the French officers there had uttered brutally frank avowal of their purpose in that wilderness as they sat at wine with the alert and temperate young Virginian. " It was their absolute design," they said, "to take possession of the Ohio, and, by G—, they would do it.... They were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertaking of theirs." The commandant at Fort Le Boeuf received the wayworn ambassador very courteously, and even graciously—a thoughtful elderly man, Washington noted him,"with much the air of a soldier " —but would make no profession even that he would consider the English summons to withdraw; and the little party of Englishmen presently turned back amidst the winter's storms to carry through the frozen wilderness a letter which boasted the French lawful masters of all the continent beyond the Alleghanies. When Washington reached Williamsburg, in the middle of January, 1754, untouched by even the fearful fatigues and anxieties of that daring journey, he had accomplished nothing but the establishment of his own character in the eyes of the men who were to meet the crisis now at hand. He had been at infinite pains, at every stage of the dreary adventure, to win and hold the confidence of the Indians who were accounted friends of the English, and had displayed an older man's patience, address, and fortitude in meeting all their subtle shifts; and he had borne hardships that tried even the doughty Gist. When the horses gave out, he had left them to come by easier stages, while he made his way afoot, with only a single companion, across the weary leagues that lay upon his homeward way. Gist, his comrade in the hazard, had been solicitously "unwilling he should undertake such a travel, who had never been used to walking before this time," but the imperative young commander would not be stayed, and the journey was made, spite of sore feet and frosts and exhausting weariness. He at least knew what the French were about, with what strongholds and forces, and could afford to await orders what to do next.
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