Not far from the bank of the river, and close by the British line of march, there was a clearing and a deserted house that had once belonged to the trader Fraser.  Washington remembered it well.  It was here that he found rest and shelter on the winter journey homeward from his mission to Fort Le Boeuf.  He was in no less need of rest at this moment; for recent fever had so weakened him that he could hardly sit his horse.  From Fraser’s house to Fort Duquesne the distance was eight miles by a rough path, along which the troops were now beginning to move after their halt.  It ran inland for a little; then curved to the left, and followed a course parallel to the river along the base of a line of steep hills that here bordered the valley.  These and all the country were buried in dense and heavy forest, choked with bushes and the carcases of fallen trees.  Braddock has been charged with marching blindly into an ambuscade; but it was not so.  There was no ambuscade; and had there been one, he would have found it.  It is true that he did not reconnoitre the woods very far in advance of the head of the column; yet, with this exception, he made elaborate dispositions to prevent surprise.  Several guides, with six Virginian light horsemen, led the way.  Then, a musket-shot behind, came the vanguard; then three hundred soldiers under Gage; then a large body of axemen, under Sir John Sinclair, to open the road; then two cannon with tumbrils and tool-wagons; and lastly the rear-guard, closing the line, while flanking-parties ranged the woods on both sides.  This was the advance-column.  The main body followed with little or no interval.  The artillery and wagons moved along the road, and the troops filed through the woods close on either hand.  Numerous flanking-parties were thrown out a hundred yards and more to right and left; while, in the space between them and the marching column, the pack horses and cattle, with their drivers, made their way painfully among the trees and thickets; since, had they been allowed to follow the road, the line of march would have been too long for mutual support.  A body of regulars and provincials brought up the rear.

Gage, with his advance-column, had just passed a wide and bushy ravine that crossed their path, and the van of the main column was on the point of entering it, when the guides and light horsemen in the front suddenly fell back; and the engineer, Gordon, then engaged in marking out the road, saw a man, dressed like an Indian, but wearing the gorget of an officer, bounding forward along the path.[223] He stopped when he discovered the head of the column, turned, and waved his hat.  The forest behind was swarming with French and savages.  At the signal of the officer, who was probably Beaujeu, they yelled the war-whoop, spread themselves to right and left, and opened a sharp fire under cover of the trees.  Gage’s column wheeled deliberately into line, and fired several volleys with great steadiness against