Much of the talk, however, Robert the Hunter, rather sleepy, did not understand. “Americans!” That was something new. Washington was an American. This perhaps explained why he was so different from the traders whom the Indians called English.
He saw that the old man and Christopher Gist talked with George Washington as though he were a man; he had seen that Washington pleased Scarouady; and he felt satisfied and happy. Tanacharison would find that his word about George Washington the American had been true word.
IV
ON THE TRAIL TO THE WEST
Early in the morning they said goodby to George Washington and the old man his friend, and with Christopher Gist took the long back trail for Logstown again.
“Let Gist follow me,” Scarouady directed. “Nemacolin’s road is one road, but it goes first to his camp and crosses swift waters. We will go straighter by the Warrior Path along Warrior Ridge, and have only one deep water to cross.”
They continued by Nemacolin’s road a little way; then they left this road into the west for the Monongahela River, and turned north for the Allegheny River above Dekanawida, the Forks of the Ohio where the Monongahela and the Allegheny joined. There they would have the Allegheny to cross with the pack horses, and then they would be on the north or Logstown side of the Ohio.
Christopher Gist had several men and two pack horses. There was snow upon the Great Mountains—the rocky Alleghany Mountains; the footing was bad for horse and man. The forest was getting wintry; cold rains washed the last of the leaves from the trees, and the wolves howled in the night, and the bear and the turkey were fat with acorns.
“Will you speak well of Washington?” the Hunter asked of Scarouady while they travelled.