“You are right,” answered Henry. “A fellow craves bread no matter what else he can get. It is certainly the staff of life. I wonder what the commander expects to do next?”
“What can he do but hold his own until more troops arrive. I hear the French army is over a thousand strong.”
At length Washington, hearing nothing of the French, prepared to continue his road building westward. This was just started when a handful of the enemy were discovered and captured. They were brought in and found to be deserters and gave out the information that the fort at the Fork was now completed and had been named Fort Duquesne, after the governor of Canada.
“And how many men are there?” asked Washington.
“Five hundred,” was the answer. “And they expect several hundred more soon.”
Undaunted, the young commander proceeded with his road building and kept this up until within thirteen miles of the fort. Here he was met by an old pioneer who told him that reinforcements had arrived at the fort in large numbers and that the French were on the point of sending out a strong body of troops to attack the English.
At first Washington was for making a stand, but he was urged by his fellow officers not to sacrifice the little party with him, and then began a swift but dignified retreat to Great Meadows.
“I don’t like this,” said Dave, with a falling face. “I thought we should go right through to father’s trading-post.”
However, he had to make the best of it, for a true soldier obeys orders, no matter what those orders are.
As it afterward proved, the retreat was made just in time, for the French were already on the way from Fort Duquesne. They were five hundred strong and under the command of Captain De Villiers, a brother-in-law to Jumonville, who had sworn to avenge his relative’s murder as he termed it. Finding Washington’s late camp deserted, and learning that the English were at Great Meadows and half-starved, De Villiers pushed on to bring about a battle.