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 After a council with my officers, we resolved to go on to fortify a post of the Ohio Company at Redstone Creek, near the Monongahela, and after sending back urgent letters we set out, doing the best we could as to the road. On May 9, at Little Meadows, we were met by many traders, driven in by the French, with tales which much discouraged my men—in all some two hundred; and still I pushed on to the Youghiogheny, and there kept the men busy with the bridging of it. Leaving them occupied in this manner, I explored the Youghiogheny for a better way by water than over the hills, but found it impracticable, and so came back to do as best I could with the road over the mountains.

That night I was again called on for a decision. I remember I walked to and fro, considering how it was but an outpost, with nothing near in the way of succour, and before me the French and the wilderness.

Van Braam, whom I had sent out to scout, had before this appeared, bringing news that, eighteen miles below, the French were crossing by a ford, their number unknown; also that several of our men had deserted and that there was much uneasiness in the camp. I was myself quite un