"The French and Indians of course know our troubles," he said. "St. Luc has gone like an arrow into the wilderness with all the news about us, and he's not the only one. If we could adjust this trouble with the Pennsylvanians we might start at once."
An hour or two after he uttered his complaint, Robert saw a middle aged man, not remarkable of appearance, talking with Braddock. His dress was homespun and careless, but his large head was beautifully shaped, and his features, though they might have been called homely, shone with the light of an extraordinary intelligence. His manner as he talked to Braddock, without showing any tinge of deference, was soothing. Robert saw at once, despite his homespun dress, that here was a man of the great world and of great affairs.
"Who is he?" he said to Willet.
"It's Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsylvania," replied the hunter. "I hear he's one of the shrewdest men in all the colonies, and I don't doubt the report."
It was Robert's first sight of Franklin, certainly not the least in that amazing group of men who founded the American Union.
"They say," continued Willet, "that he's already achieved the impossible, that he's drawing General Braddock and the Pennsylvanians together, and that we'll soon get weapons, horses and all the other supplies we need."
It was no false news. Franklin had done what he alone could do. One of the greatest masters of diplomacy the world has ever known, he brought Braddock and Pennsylvania together, and smoothed out the difficulties. All the needed supplies began to flow in, and on the tenth of an eventful May the whole army started from Wills Creek to which point it had advanced, while Franklin was removing the difficulties. A new fort named Cumberland had been established there, and stalwart Virginians had been cutting a road ahead through the wilderness.
The place was on the edge of the unending forest. The narrow fringe of settlements on the Atlantic coast was left behind, and henceforth they must march through regions known only to the Indians and the woods rangers. But it was a fine army, two British regiments under Halket and Dunbar, their numbers reinforced by Virginia volunteers, and five hundred other Virginians, divided into nine companies. There was a company of British sailors, too, and artillery, and hundreds of wagons and baggage horses. Among the teamsters was a strong lad named Daniel Boone destined to immortality as the most famous of all pioneers.
Robert, Willet and Tayoga could have had horses to ride, but against the protests of Grosvenor and their other new English friends they declined them. They knew that they could scout along the flanks of an army far better on foot.
"In one way," said Willet, to Grosvenor, "we three, Robert, Tayoga and I, are going back home. The lads, at least have spent the greater part of their lives in the forest, and to me it has given a kindly welcome for these many years. It may look inhospitable to you who come from a country of roads and open fields, but it's not so to us. We know its ways. We can find shelter where you would see none, and it offers food to us, where you would starve, and you're a young man of intelligence too."