“The French insisted that all the country west of the Alleghenies belonged to them and they disputed the English possession at every point.  When Washington was only twenty-one years old he was sent to beg the French not to interfere with the English, but he had a hard journey with no fortunate results.  It was on this journey that he picked out a good position for a fort and started to build it.  It was where Pittsburg now stands.”

“That was a good position for a fort, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join to make the Ohio,” commended Roger.

“It was such a good position that the French drove off the English workmen and finished the work themselves.  They called it Fort Duquesne and it became one of a string of sixty French forts extending from Quebec to New Orleans.”

“Some builders!” commended Roger.

“Fort Duquesne was so valuable that the English sent one of their generals, Braddock, to capture it.  Washington went with him on his staff, to show him the way.”

“It must have been a long trip from the coast through all this hilly country.”

“It was.  They had to build roads and they were many weeks on the way.”

“It was a different matter from the twentieth century transportation of soldiers by train and motor trucks and stages,” reminded Mrs. Morton.

“When the British were very near Fort Duquesne,” continued Mr. Emerson, “the French sent out a small band, mainly Indians, to meet them.  The English general didn’t understand Indian fighting and kept his men massed in the road where they were shot down in great numbers and he lost his own life.  There’s a town named after him, on the site of the battle.”

“Here it is,” and Helen pointed it out on the map in the railway folder.  “It’s about ten miles from Pittsburg.”

“Washington took command after the death of Braddock, and this was his first real military experience.  However, his heart was in the taking of Fort Duquesne and when General Forbes was sent out to make another attempt at capturing it Washington commanded one of the regiments of Virginia troops.”

“Isn’t there any poetry about it?” demanded Ethel Brown, who knew her grandfather’s habit of collecting historical ballads.

“Certainly there is.  There are some verses on ‘Fort Duquesne’ by Florus Plimpton written for the hundredth anniversary of the capture.”

“Did they have a great old fight to take the fort?” asked Roger.

“No fight at all.  Here’s what Plimpton says:—­

    “So said:  and each to sleep addressed his wearied limbs and mind,
    And all was hushed i’ the forest, save the sobbing of the wind,
    And the tramp, tramp, tramp of the sentinel, who started oft in fright
    At the shadows wrought ’mid the giant trees by the fitful camp-fire
        light.

    “Good Lord! what sudden glare is that that reddens all the sky,
    As though hell’s legions rode the air and tossed their torches high! 
    Up, men! the alarm drum beats to arms! and the solid ground seems riven
    By the shock of warring thunderbolts in the lurid depth of heaven!