re not
looking, he fired his gun at them from behind a tree. He did not hit
either of them. Some men would have shot him, but they did not; they let
him go away and walked on alone through the deep woods. They built a
fire that night, but they did not sleep before it, for they were afraid
the Indian might come back and try to kill them while they were
sleeping. So they left it burning and walked on a few miles and went to
sleep without a fire.

A few days after that they came to the banks of a wide river. You may
find it on your map of Pennsylvania. It is called the Allegheny River,
and runs into the Ohio. It had been frozen, for it was winter time; but
now the ice was broken and floating swiftly down the stream.

What were they to do? They had to get across that stream. The only plan
they could think of was to build a raft out of logs and try to push it
through the ice with long poles. This they did, and were soon out on the
wild river and among the floating ice.

It was a terrible passage. The great cakes of ice came swirling along
and striking like heavy hammers against the raft, almost hard enough to
knock it to pieces. One of these heavy ice cakes struck the pole of the
young traveler, and gave him such a shock that he fell from the raft
into the freezing cold water. He had a hard enough scramble to get back
on the raft again.

After a while they reached a little island in the stream and got ashore.
There was no wood on it and they could not make a fire, so they had to
walk about all night to keep from freezing. The young man was wet to the
skin, but he had young blood and did not suffer as much as the older man
with him. When morning came they found that the ice was frozen fast
between the island and the other shore, so all they had to do was to
walk across it.

These were not the only adventures they had, but they got safe back to
Virginia, from which they had set out months before.

Do you want to know who this young traveler was? His name was George
Washington. That is all I need say. Any one who does not know who George
Washington was is not much of an American. But quite likely you do not
guess what he was doing in the woods so far away from his home. He had
been sent there by the governor of Virginia, and I shall have to tell
you why.

But first you must go back with me to an earlier time. The time I mean
is when the French were settling in Canada along the St. Lawrence River,
and going west over th