“I should like it above all things,” James said thankfully.

“Then we will at once go to the tent of the officer commanding this company,” Washington said, “and enroll you as a volunteer.”

On reaching the tent, Washington dismounted and led the way in.

“Captain Hall,” he said, “this is a young English gentleman, who will shortly have a commission in the king’s army, but, in the meantime, he wishes to see a little brisk fighting, so he is to be enrolled as a volunteer in your company; but he is going to obtain a horse, and will act as a sort of aide-de-camp to me.”

Captain Hall at once entered James’s name as a volunteer on the roll of his company.

“Do you know of anyone who has a good horse for sale?” Washington asked.

“Yes,” the captain replied, “at least, there was a farmer here half an hour ago with a good-looking horse which he wants to sell.  I have no doubt he is in the camp, still.”

Captain Hall went to the door of the tent, and told two of the men there to find the farmer, and tell him he had a purchaser for his horse.

Ten minutes later the farmer came up, and James bought the horse, Captain Hall doing the bargaining for him.

“Now,” Washington said, “we will go round to the storekeeper I spoke of, and deposit the best part of your money with him.  I should only take a pound or two, if I were you, for you will find no means of spending money when you once set forward, and, should anything happen to you, the Indians would not appreciate the value of those English notes of yours.  You will want a brace of pistols and a sword, a blanket, and cooking pot—­that is about the extent of your camp equipment.”

Chapter 9:  The Defeat Of Braddock.

England and France were, at this time, at peace in Europe, although the troops of both nations were about to engage in conflict, in the forests of America.  Their position there was an anomalous one.  England owned the belt of colonies on the east coast.  France was mistress of Canada in the north, of Louisiana in the south, and, moreover, claimed the whole of the vast country lying behind the British colonies, which were thus cooped up on the seaboard.  Her hold, however, of this great territory was extremely slight.  She had strong posts along the chain of lakes from the Saint Lawrence to Lake Superior, but between these and Louisiana, her supremacy was little more than nominal.

The Canadian population were frugal and hardy, but they were deficient in enterprise; and the priests, who ruled them with a rod of iron, for Canada was intensely Catholic, discouraged any movements which would take their flocks from under their charge.  Upon the other hand, the colonists of New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were men of enterprise and energy, and their traders, pushing in large numbers across the Alleghenies, carried on an extensive trade with the Indians in the valley of the Ohio, thereby greatly exciting the jealousy of the French, who feared that the Indians would ally themselves with the British colonists, and that the connection between Canada and Louisiana would be thereby cut.