saw that he was
no longer smiling. His lips were closed in that firm straight line which
I had already seen once or twice, and which during years of trial became
habitual to him. My own petty anger vanished at the sight.

"I have not yet thanked you, Colonel Washington," I said at last, "for
securing me my appointment. I was eating my heart out to make the
campaign, but saw no way of doing so until your message reached me."

"Why, Tom," he laughed, "you were the first of whom I thought when
General Braddock gave me leave to fill some of the vacancies. Did you
think I had so soon forgot the one who saved my life at Fort Necessity?"

I opened my mouth to protest, but he silenced me with a gesture.

"I can see it as though it were here before us," he continued. "The
French and Indians on the knoll yonder, my own men kneeling in the
trenches, almost waist-deep in water, trying in vain to keep their powder
dry; here and there a wounded man lying in the mud and cursing, the rain
and mist over it all, and the night coming on. And then, suddenly, the
rush of Indians at our back, and over the breastwork. I had my pistol in
my hand, you remember, Tom, but the powder flashed in the pan, and the
foremost of the savages was upon me. I saw his tomahawk in the air, and I
remember wondering who would best command when I was dead. But your aim
was true and your powder dry, and when the tomahawk fell, it fell
harmless, with its owner upon it."

For a moment neither of us spoke. My eyes were wet at thought of the
scene which I so well remembered, and when I turned to him, I saw that he
was still brooding over this defeat, which had rankled as a poisoned
arrow in his breast ever since that melancholy morning we had marched
away from the Great Meadows with the French on either side and the
Indians looting the baggage in the rear. As we reached my quarters, we
turned by a common impulse and continued onward through the darkness.

"This expedition must be more fortunate," he said at last, as though in
answer to his own thought. "A thousand regulars, as many more
provincials, guns, and every equipage,--yes, it is large enough and
strong enough, unless"--

"Unless?" I questioned, as he paused.

"Unless we walk headlong to our own destruction," he said. "But no, I
won't believe it. The general has been bred in the Coldstreams and
knows nothing of frontier fighting. But he is a brave man, an honest
man, and he will learn. Small wonder he