Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 2).djvu/143

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AN EXPLORER'S NOTES
135

mark the site of Fort Necessity where the first battle in the West was fought and where Washington signed his first—and last—capitulation. From Fort Necessity you may pick your way westward along the old path as it climbs slowly the stately shoulders of Laurel Hill; deep in the valley you will find a little pile of stones surmounted by a rude cross where the French "embassador" Jumonville was buried when Washington's Indians ran him to cover. In the pursuit which followed, the young major, with his handful of Virginians, floundered over this narrow path to Washington's Spring and then downward to the cliffs from which that first volley of the old French war was fired.

Or go back again to Cumberland on the Potomac, where Braddock's troops are impatiently awaiting the order to advance. At least six hundred swarthy men are sent forward to open a great road over the Indian track. The army soon marches in their wake—a very plain wake of felled trees, uprooted bushes and vines. It is desperately slow work. The army camps night after night within hearing of those