Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 3).djvu/131

Rh the withdrawal of the Virginian force under Trent from the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela, where they had been sent to build a fort for the protection of the Ohio Company. Without any delay, he forwarded this information to the governors of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

Fancy the state of mind of this vanguard of the Virginian army at the receipt of this news. They were then at the last frontier fort with eleven companies of troops. Their orders were to push on to the Ohio, drive off the French army (which was then reported to number a thousand men), and build a fort there. Before them the only road was the Indian path, which was hardly wide enough to admit the passage of a packhorse.

A ballot was cast among Washington's captains—the youngest of whom was old enough to have been his father—and the decision reached was to advance. The Indian path could at least be widened, and bridges built, as far as the Monongahela. There they determined to erect a fort and await orders and reinforcements. The