So far the enterprise had succeeded, and success had produced the usual effect upon the wavering Indian mind, inclining the tribes of the Ohio to the side which took the initiative and gave outward and visible signs of strength. But the French were only at the outset of their enterprise. As the year wore on, their ranks were thinned by disease; their commander, Marin, died; and, when winter came, but three hundred men were left to hold the forts on Lake Erie and French Creek. The intention had been to push down the latter river, and, where it joined the Alleghany, to build a third fort. This fort in turn was to be a starting-point for a further advance to the main objective, the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers. [Sidenote: _The routes to the Ohio._] [Sidenote: _Fort Cumberland._] All through early Canadian history, we find the clue to the various movements on either side is studying the waterways. As in the centre of the two conflicting lines of advance, the English moved up the Hudson and the French up the Richelieu, to find their battleground on Lakes George and Champlain, so further to the west, in the region of the Ohio, the Alleghany and its feeders brought the French down from {230} Canada, while the English moved north along the line of the Monongahela and its tributary the Youghiogany. These streams take their rise amid the parallel ranges of the Alleghanies, in that border country of the three States of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, which was the scene of the hardest fighting between North and South in the American Civil War. Near where the Monongahela starts on its northern course to the Ohio, but divided by mountains, is the source of the northern branch of the Potomac, which runs into the Atlantic. This latter river flows at first north-east between two mountain ranges; and, where it turns to the east, cutting its way through the hills, a small stream, known as Wills Creek, joins it from the north. At this point was a station of the Ohio Company, shortly afterwards called Fort Cumberland, after the English duke. This was the base of the British advance; but mountains had to be crossed to reach the Monongahela valley; it was easier to come down from Canada to the Ohio than to march upon it from the Atlantic side. [Sidenote: _Robert Dinwiddie._]