Washington had been waiting here at Will’s Creek for pack horses that had been promised him. He ordered out sixty of his men to be widening and smoothing the Nemacolin Trail so that he could travel rapidly. But no pack horses were given him; so he found what wagons he could, and a few horses to draw them, and with the rest of his men, one hundred, he started. The Trent men would not march again, and had gone home.
His great guns had not come, either. The chief of all the Long Knife army being raised was Colonel Joshua Fry—the man who had talked for Virginia at the big council in Logstown summoned by Christopher Gist. Washington was second in command, and now Fry would follow with more men and the great guns. It seemed to Robert that for Washington to go against those many French and Indians in the woods, with only a company and a half, mostly ragged traders and settlers called “raw” (whatever that meant) by Jacob Vanbraam, was foolish.
But they were Long Knife Americans, and good shots, and Washington commanded. He had with him Jacob Vanbraam, and one Peyroney a French American, and several others who looked to be skilled warriors, for his officers; and with Tanacharison’s help maybe everything would be all right.
Anyway, he was going first to the mouth of Redstone Creek, where at the end of Nemacolin’s Trail the Trent men had built the trading house, and he would wait there for Colonel Fry and the great guns, before attacking the French.
Now again it was a hard march over the Savage Mountains, and over the Alleghany or Great Mountains, and across the Youghiogheny or Four Streams-in-One River, and through the Great Meadows and over the Laurel Hills, and past Gist’s place, to Redstone Creek at the Monongahela.
The sixty men sent ahead had been able to do little with the road; the horses for the baggage wagons soon gave out, and the men had to drag the wagons, themselves; so that after a week Washington was no further than Little Meadows, twenty or twenty-five miles from Will’s Creek.
The news was bad, brought by traders driven out by the French. The French had built a strong fort at the Forks. They had increased by eight hundred soldiers, and six hundred more soldiers were coming up the Ohio! One trader had met the French officer La Force and four French soldiers, from the Forks, scouting around Gist’s place and spying out the country. The French were buying the Delawares, Shawnees and Mingos with presents. But Tanacharison, said the trader, was marching with fifty warriors to join Washington; and that was good news.
As he marched, Washington left behind him a road smoothed for wheels, so that the great guns could be brought on swiftly. Therefore his march was slow. When he was forty miles from Will’s Creek the Buck met him, with fresh word from Tanacharison.
“The French army is coming to find Washington,” were the words now carried by the Buck. “Let Washington be on his guard against them. They intend to strike the first English that they meet. They have been on the march two days, but I do not know their number. I and my chiefs will be with Washington in five days.”
“Where is Half-King?” Washington asked.