his rich farms was an alternative as impossible as alluring. But perhaps a bleeding border-land never in the world needed a twenty-three year old lad more than Virginia now needed her young son. A flood-tide of murder and pillage swept over the Alleghenies. The raids of the savages brought the people to their senses, as the most terrible of tales came in from the frontier. But soon the question arose, "Where is the frontier?" The great track Braddock had opened for the conquest of the Ohio valley became the pathway of his conquerors, and soon Fort Cumberland, the frontier post, was far in the enemies' country. The Indians soon found Burd's road on the summit of the Alleghenies and poured over it by Raystown toward Carlisle and Shippensburg. Each day brought the line of settlements nearer and nearer the populous portions of Virginia and Pennsylvania, until Winchester became an endangered outpost and fears were entertained for Lancaster and York. Hundreds now who had refused the despairing Braddock horses and wagons saw their wives and children murdered
