Bouquet led his force westward.  Sixty of his soldiers were so ill that they were unable to march and had to be carried in wagons.  It was intended that the sick should take the place of the men now in Forts Bedford and Ligonier, and thus help to guard the rear.  The road was found to be in frightful condition.  The spring freshets had cut it up; deep gullies crossed the path; and the bridges over the streams had been in most cases washed away.  As the little army advanced, panic-stricken settlers by the way told stories of the destruction of homes and the slaughter of friends.  Fort Bedford, where Captain Lewis Ourry was in command, was reached on the 25th.  Here three days were spent, and thirty more guides were secured to serve as an advance-guard of scouts and give warning of the presence of enemies.  Bouquet had tried his Highlanders at this work; but they were unfamiliar with the forest, and, as they invariably got lost, were of no value as scouts.  Leaving his invalided officers and men at Bedford, Bouquet, with horses rested and men refreshed, pressed forward and arrived at Ligonier on August 2.  Preparations had now to be made for the final dash to Fort Pitt, fifty odd miles away, over a path that was beset by savages, who also occupied all the important passes.  It would be impossible to get through without a battle—­a wilderness battle—­and the thought of the Braddock disaster was in the minds of all.  But Bouquet was not a Braddock, and he was experienced in Indian warfare.  To attempt to pass ambuscades with a long train of cumbersome wagons would be to invite disaster; so he discarded his wagons and heavier stores, and having made ready three hundred and forty pack-horses loaded with flour, he decided to set out from Ligonier on the 4th of August.  It was planned to reach Bushy Creek—­’Bushy Run,’ as Bouquet called it—­on the following day, and there rest and refresh horses and men.  In the night a dash would be made through the dangerous defile at Turtle Creek; and, if the high broken country at this point could be passed without mishap, the rest of the way could be easily won.

At daylight the troops were up and off.  It was an oppressively hot August morning, and no breath of wind stirred the forest.  Over the rough road trudged the long line of sweltering men.  In advance were the scouts; then followed several light companies of the Black Watch; then the main body of the little army; and in the rear came the toiling pack-horses.  Until noon the soldiers marched, panting and tortured by mosquitoes, but buoyed up by the hope that at Bushy Run they would be able to quench their burning thirst and rest until nightfall.  By one o’clock in the afternoon they had covered seventeen miles and were within a mile and a half of their objective point.  Suddenly in their front they heard the sharp reports of muskets; the firing grew in intensity:  the advance-guard was evidently in contact with a considerable body of Indians.  Two light companies were rushed