L Installment 5 j The letter of invitation, written by j Captain Orme, aide-de-camp, was , couched In terms of unaffected cor-J cor-J diality. Washington very gladly accepted, ac-cepted, in a letter that had just a touch of the young provincial in it, so elaborate and over-long was its explanation ex-planation of Us writer's delicate position posi-tion and self-respecting motives, but with so much more of the proud gentleman gen-tleman and resolute man that the smile with'-which Captain Orme must have read it could have nothing of disrelish in It.- The young aide-de-camp and all the other members of the general's military mili-tary "family" found its author, at any rate, a man after, their own hearts when" it came to terms of intimacy among them. By mid-April the commander-in-chief had brought five governors together to-gether at Alexandria, .in obedience to his call for an immediate conference con-ference William Shirley, of Massachusetts, Mas-sachusetts, the stout-hearted oid lawyer, law-yer, every inch "a gentleman and politician," pol-itician," who had of a sudden turned soldier, to face the French, for all he was past sixty; James De Lancey, of New .York, astute man of the people; the brave and energetic Horatio Share, of Maryland; Robert Hunter Morris, fresh from the latest wrangles with the headstrong Quakers and Germans Ger-mans of Pennsylvania, and Robert Dinwiddie, . the busy merchant governor gover-nor of the Old Dominion, whose urgent .letters to .the government at home had brought Braddock and his regiments regi-ments to the Potomac. Plans were promptly agreed upon. New York and New England, seeing war come on apace, were astir no less than Virginia, and in active correspondence corre-spondence with the ministers in London. Lon-don. Two regiments had already been raised and taken into the king's pay; the militia of all the threatened colonies col-onies were afoot; in all quarters action ac-tion was expected and instant war. To Strike at Niagara. Governor Shirley, the council agreed, should strike at once at Niagara Ni-agara with the king's new provincial regiments, in the hope to cut the enemy's en-emy's connections with, their western posts; Colonel William Johnson, the cool-headed trader and borderer, who had lived and thriven so long in the forests where the dreaded Mohawks had their strength, should lead a levy from New England, New York and New Jersey, to an attack Upon Crown Point, where for twenty-four years the French had held Champlain; and Lieutenant Colonel Monckton, of the king's regulars must take a similar force against Beausejour in Acadia, while General Braddock struck straight into. the western wilderness to take Duquesne. 'Twere best to be prompt in every part of the hazardous business, and Braddock turned from the conference to push his own expedition forward at once. "After taking Fort Duquesne," Du-quesne," he said to Franklin, "I am to proceed to Niagara; and after having hav-ing taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will allow time; and I suppose it will,- for Duquesne can hardly detain de-tain nie above three or four days; and then I can see nothing that can obstruct ob-struct my march to Niagara." The Sagacious Franklin. "To be sure, sir," quietly replied the sagacious Franklm; "if you arrive well before Duquesne with these fine troops, so well provided with artillery, the fort . . . can probably make but a short resistance." But there was the trouble. 'Twould have been better, no doubt, had a route through Pennsylvania been chosen, where cultivated farms already al-ready stretched well into the west, with their own roads and grain and cattle and wagons to serve an army with; but the Virginia route had been selected (by intrigue of gentlemen interested in-terested in the Ohio company, it was hinted), and must needs be made the uesi oi. There was there, at the least, the rough track Washington's men had cut to the Great Meadows. This must be widened and leveled for an army with its cumbrous train of artillery, and its endless procession of wagons laden with baggage and provisions. To take two thousand men through the dense forests with all the military j trappings and supplies of a European : army would be to put, it might be, , four miles of its rough trail between : van and rear of ihe struggling line, i and it would be a clumsy enemy, as fighting went in the woods, who could , not cut such a force into pieces "like thread," as Franklin said. j The Advance Begins. j The thing was to be attempted. . nevertheless, with stubborn British i resolution. It was the 19th of May before all the forces intended for the j march were finally collected at Fort j Cumberland, twenty-two hundred men i In all fourteen hundred regulars, j now the recruits were in; nearly five j hundred Virginians, horse and foot; j :wo Independent companies from Xew j Vcrk; and a small force of sailors from the transports to rig tackle for ; he ordnance when there was need on ; lie rcugh way. And it as the 10th of June when the advance began, straight into that "realm of forests ancient as the world" that lay without with-out limit upon all the western ways." Braddock a Mischief Breeder. It was a thing of infinite difficulty to get that lumbering train through the tangled wilderness, and it kept the temper of the truculent Braddock very hot to see how it played havoc with every principle and practice of campaigning he had ever heard of. He charged the colonists with an. utter ut-ter want alike of honor and of honesty hon-esty to have kept him so long awaiting await-ing the transportation and supplies they had promised, and to have done so little to end with, and so drew Washington into "frequent disputes, maintained with warmth on both sides"; but the difficulties of the march presently wrought a certain forest change upon him, and disposed him to take counsel of his young Virginian Vir-ginian aide the only man In all his company who could speak out of knowledge in that wild country. On the 19th, at Washington's advice, ad-vice, he took twelve hundred men and pressed forward with a lightened train to a quicker advance, leaving Colonel Dunbar to bring up the rest of the troops with the baggage. Even this lightened force halted "to level every mole-hill, and to erect bridges over every brook," as Washington chafed to see, and "were four days in" getting twelve miles": hut the nnra was better than before, and brought them at last almost to their destination. destina-tion. Surprised by the Enemy. On the 9th. of July, at mid-day, they waded the shallow Monongahela, but eight miles from Duquesne, making a brave show as the sue struck upon their serried ranks, their bright uniforms, uni-forms, their fluttering banners, and their glittering arms, and went straight into the rough and shadowed forest path that led to the French post. Upon a sudden there came a man bounding along the path to meet them, wearing the gorget of a French officer, offi-cer, and the forest behind him swarmed with a great host of but half-discovered men. Upon signal given, these spread themselves to the right and left within the shelter of the forest, and from their covert poured a deadly fire upon Braddock's advancing lines. With good, British pluck the steady regulars formed their accustomed ranks, crying, "God save the king!" to give grace to the volleys they sent back into the forest; the ordnance was brought up and swung to its work; all the force pressed forward to take what place it could In the fight; but where was the use? Braddock Will Not Listen. Washington besought General Braddock Brad-dock to scatter his men too, and meet the enemy under cqver as they came, but he would not listen. They must stand in ranks, as they were bidden, and take the fire of their hidden foes like men, without breach of discipline. When they would have broken in spite of him, in their panic at being slaughtered there in the open glade without sight of the enemy, Braddock beat them back with his sword, and bitterly cursed them for cowards. He would have kept the Virginians, too, back from the covert If he could when he saw thcj seek to close with the attacking party in true forest fashion. fash-ion. As it was. they were as often shot down by the terror-stricken regulars regu-lars behind them as by their right foes in front. They alone made any head in the fight; but who could tell in such a place how the battle fared? Redskins in Force. No one could count the enemy where they sprang from covert to covert. They were, In (act, near a thousand strong at the first meeting in the waymore than six hundred Indians, a motley host gathered from far and near at the summons of the French, sevenscore Canadian rangers. seventy odd regulars from the fort, and thirty or forty French officers, come out of sheer eagerness to have a hand in the daring game. Con-trecoeur Con-trecoeur could not spare. more Frenchmen French-men from his little garrison, his connections con-nections at the lakes being threatened, threat-ened, and he sorely straightened for men and stores. He was staking everything, as it was. upon this encounter en-counter on the way. If the English should shake the savages sav-ages off, as he deemed they would, he must no dcubt withdraw as he could ere the lines of siege were closed about him. He never dreamed of such largess of good fortune as came pouring in upon him. The English were not only checked, check-ed, but beaten. They had never seen business like this. 'Twas a pitifal. shameful slaughter slaugh-ter men shot like bears in a pen there where they cowered close in the scarlet ranks. Their first blazing volley had sent the craven Canadians scampering back the way they had come; Beau jeu. who led the attack, was killed almost at the first onset; but the gallant youngsters young-sters who led the motley array wavered wav-ered never an instant, and readily , held the Indians to their easy work. j Washington did all that furious energy and reckless courage could to keep the order - of battle his commander com-mander had so madly chosen, to hold the regulars to their blind work and hearten the Virginians to stay the threatened rout, driving his horse everywhere into the thick of the murderous mur-derous firing, and crying upon all alike to keep to it steadily like men. He had but yesterday rejoined the advance, having for almost two-weeks lain stricken with a fever in Dunbar's camp. A Charmed Life. He could hardly sit his cushioned saddle for weakness when the fight began; but when the blaze of the battle bat-tle burst, his eagerness was suddenly like that of one possessed, and his immunity im-munity from harm like that of one charmed. Thrice a horse was shot under him, many -bullets cut his clothing, cloth-ing, but he went without a wound. A like mad energy drove Braddock storming up and down the breaking lines, but he was mortally stricken at last, and Washington alone remained to exercise Buch control as was possible pos-sible when the inevitable rout came. It was Impossible to hold the ground in such fashion. The stubborn Braddock Brad-dock himself had ordered a retreat ere the fatal bullet found him. Sixty-three Sixty-three out of the eighty-six officers of his force were killed or disabled; less than five hundred men out of all the thirteen hundred who had but just now passed so gallantly through the ford remained unhurt; the deadly slaughter must have gone on to utter destruction.1 Death of Braddock. Retreat was inevitable 'twas blessed good fortune that it wa3 still possible. When once it began it was headlong, reckless, frenzied. The men ran wildly, blindly, as if hunted by demons whom no man might hope to resist haunted by the frightful cries, maddened by the searching and secret fire of their foes, now coming hot upon their heels. Wounded comrades, military stores, baggage, .their very arms, they left upon the ground, abandoned. Far into the night they ran madly on, in frantic search for the camp of the rear division, crying, as they ran, for help; they even passed the camp, in their uncontrollable terror ter-ror of pursuit, and went desperately on toward the settlements. Washington and the few officers and provincials who scorned the terror found the utmost difficulty in bringing off their stricken general, where he lay . wishing to die. Upon the fourth day after the battle he died, loathing the sight of a redcoat, they said, and murmuring praises of "the blues," the once despised Virginians. They buried his body in the road, that the army wagons might pass over the place and obliterate every trace of a grave their savage enemies might rejoice to find and desecrate. A Craven Commander. He had lived to Teach Dunbar's camp, but not to see the end of the shameful pout. The terror mastered the rear guard, too. They destroyed their artillery, burned their wagons and stores, emptied their powder into the streams, and themselves broke into in-to a disordered feverish retreat which was a mere flight, their cravan commander com-mander shamefully acquiescing. He would not even hold or rally them at Fort Cumberland, but went on, as if upon a hurried errand, all the way to Philadelphia, leaving the fort, and all the frontier with it, "to be defended de-fended by invalids and a few Virginians." Vir-ginians." "I acknowledge," cried Dinwiddle, "I was not brought up to arms; but I think common sense would have prevailed pre-vailed not to leave the frontier exposed expos-ed after having opened a road over the mountains to the Ohio, by which the enemy can the more easily invade us. The whole conduct of Colonel Dunbar seems to be monstrous." And so, indeed it was. But the colonies at large had little time to think of it. Governor Shirley had gone against Niagara only to find the French ready for him at every point, now that they had read Brad-dock's Brad-dock's papers, taken at Duquesne, and to come back again without doing anything. any-thing. Beausejour had been taken in Acadia, but it lay apart from the main field o! struggle. Johnson beat the French off at Lake George when they attacked him, and took Dieskau, their commander; bnt he contented himself I with Unit, and left Crown Point untouched. un-touched. There were other frontiers ; besides :hose of Virginia and Pennsyl-i Pennsyl-i vania to he looked to and guarded, j Three Years of French Success, j For three long years did the fortunes for-tunes of the English settlements go I steadily from danger to desperation. as the French and their savage allies ' advanced from victory to victory. In 1758 Oswego was taken: in 1757, Fort , Will iam Henry. Commander succeeded succeed-ed commander among the English, only to add blunder to blunder, failure to failure. And all the while it fell to Washing-I Washing-I ton, Virginia's chief stay in her desperate des-perate trouble, to stand steadfastly to , the hopeless work of keeping three j hundred and fifty miles of frontier with a few hundred men against prowl-. Ing bands of savages, masters of the craft of swift and secret attack, dexterous dex-terous at skulking," in a country "mountainous and full of swamps and hollow ways covered with woods." For twenty years now settlers had been coming steadily into this wilder-ness wilder-ness that lay up and down upon the aearer . slopes of the great mountains Germans, Scots-Irish, a hard breed. Their settlements lay scattered far and near among the foot-hills and valleys. val-leys. Their men were valiant and stout-hearted, quick with the rifle, hard as flint when they were once afoot to revenge themselves for murdered mur-dered wives and children and comrades. com-rades. But how could they, scatteitid as they were, meet these covert sallies in the dead of night a sudden rush ol men with torches, the keen knife, the quick rifle? The country filled with fugitives, for whom Washington's militiamen mi-litiamen could find neither food nor shelter. Washington's Tender Heart. "The supplicating tears of the women, wom-en, and moving petitiops of the men," cried the young commander, "melt me Into such deadly sorrow that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people's ease. ... I would be a willing offering to save fury, and die by inches to save a people." It was a comfort to know, at least, that he was trusted and believed in. The Burgesses had thanked him under the very stroke of Braddock's defeat, in terms which could not be doubted sincere. In the very thick of his deep troubles, when he would have guarded the helpless people of the border, but could not, Colonel Fairfax could send him word from Williamsburg, "Your good health and fortune are the toast at every table." "Our Colonel," wrote a young comrade in arms, "is an example ex-ample of fortitude in either danger or hardships, and by his easy, polite behavior be-havior has eained not onlv the reeard but affection of both officers and soldiers." sol-diers." A Trying Ordeal. But it took all the steadiness that: had been born or bred in him to endure en-dure the strain of the disheartening task, from which he could not In honor hon-or break away. His plans, he complained, com-plained, were "today approved, tomorrow tomor-row condemned." He was bidden do what was impossible. It would require re-quire fewer men to go against Duquesne Du-quesne again and remove the cause of danger than to prevent the effects while the cause remained. Many of his officers were careless and inefficient, ineffi-cient, many of his men -mutinous. "Your Honor will, I hope, excuse my hanging instead of shooting them," he wrote to the governor; "it conveyed much more terror to others, and it was for example's sake that we did it." It was a test as of fire for a young colonel in his twenties. - But a single light lies upon the picture. Early in 1776, ere the summer's sum-mer's terrors had come upon the border, and while he could be spared, Washington took horse and made his way to Boston to see Governor Gov-ernor Shirley, now acting as commander-in-chief in the colonies, and from him at first hand obtained settlement of that teasing question of rank that had already driven the young officer once from the service. He went very bravely bright in proper uniform of buff and blue, a white-and-scarlet cloak upon his shoulders, the sword at his side knotted with red and gold, his horse's fittings engraved with the Washington arms, and trimmed in the best style of the London saddlers. With him rode two aides in their uniforms, uni-forms, and two servants In their white-and-scarlet livery. Curious folk who looked upon the celebrated young officer upon the road saw him fare upon his way with all the pride of an admirable Virginia gentleman, a handsome man, and an admirable horseman a very gallant I figure, no one could deny. Everywhere he was feted as he went; everywhere he showed himself the earnest, high-strung,, high-strung,, achieving youth he was. An Affair of the Heart. In New York he fell into a new ambush, am-bush, from which he did not come off without a wound. His friend Beverly Robinson must needs have Miss Mary Phillipse at his house there, a beauty and an heiress, and Washington came away from her with a sharp rigor at hi heart. But he could not leave that desolate frontier at home unprotected unpro-tected to stay for a siege of a lady's iietii, in; nau recovered irom sucn wounds before, had before that left pleasure for duty; and in proper season, sea-son, was back at his post, with papers from Shirley which left no doubt who should command in Virginia. (TO BE CONTINUED.)