immense
piece of land in Virginia. Lord Fairfax and George soon became great
friends. He was a gray-haired man nearly sixty, but he enjoyed having
this boy of fourteen as a companion. They spent weeks together on
horseback in the fields and woods, hunting deer and foxes.

[Footnote 3: Fairfax. This was the Hon. William Fairfax; he was
cousin to Lord Fairfax, and he had the care of Lord Fairfax's land.]

127. Lord Fairfax hires Washington to survey[4] his land; how
Washington lived in the woods; the Indian war-dance.--Lord Fairfax's
land extended westward more than a hundred miles. It had never been
very carefully surveyed; and he was told that settlers were moving
in beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains,[5] and were building log-cabins
on his property without asking leave. By the time Washington was
sixteen, he had learned surveying; and so Lord Fairfax hired him to
measure his land for him. Washington was glad to undertake the work;
for he needed the money, and he could earn in this way from five to
ten dollars a day.

[Illustration: Map illustrating Washington's early life.]

Early in the spring, Washington, in company with another young man,
started off on foot to do this business. They crossed the Blue Ridge
Mountains, and entered the Valley of Virginia, one of the most
beautiful valleys in America.

The two young men would work all day in the woods with a long chain,
measuring the land. When evening came, Washington would make a map
of what they had measured. Then they would wrap themselves up in their
blankets, stretch themselves on the ground at the foot of a tree,
and go to sleep under the stars.

Every day they shot some game--squirrels or wild turkeys, or perhaps
a deer. They kindled a fire with flint and steel,[6] and roasted the
meat on sticks held over the coals. For plates they had clean chips;
and as clean chips could always be got by a few blows with an axe,
they never washed any dishes, but just threw them away, and had a
new set for each meal.

While in the Valley they met a band of Indians, who stopped and danced
a war-dance for them. The music was not remarkable,--for most of it
was made by drumming on a deer-skin stretched across the top of an
old iron pot,--but the dancing itself could not be beat. The savages
leaped into the air, swung their hatchets, gashed the trees, and
yelled till the woods rang.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON SEES AN INDIAN WAR-DANCE.]

When Washington returned from his