"Not exactly that. We've yet to dislodge them from various places. But they think now England will be willing to treat. And we'll have a country of our own! Well, it was three weeks ago." There were no telegraphs, and only the more important places had post roads. Pittsburg was quite out of the way. It had no dreams of grandeur in those days, and about its only claim to eminence was Braddock's defeat. "Lang brought some copies of the Philadelphia _Gazette_, but you couldn't get near one, they were rushed off so. But we'll hear it all in a few days. Too much good news might puff us up with vain glory. We may look for letters any day. Such a splendid victory!" Grandfather was wiping the tears from his eyes. Marc Bradin went in to comfort his daughter, though he could hardly forbear smiling with a sense of inward amusement as he thought of Sandy Carrick, who had as good as disowned his son for joining the Colonial army. He'd be glad enough to have him back again. Though he had been rather disgruntled at his marrying Barbe Bradin because she had French blood in her veins, as if the Irish Bradin could not in some degree counteract that! Sandy Carrick had been in the sore battle of Braddock's defeat. But after all the cowardly French had thought retreat the better part of valor and left the Fort that had been partly burned, left that section as well, and the government had erected the new Fort Pitt. He insisted that the French had been really driven out. They certainly had been checked in their advance to the Mississippi. Pittsburg was a conglomerate in these early days. Welsh, Irish, and English had contributed to its then small population of the few hundreds whose history and beginning were like so many other emigrants. The houses were ranged largely about the Fort for protection from the Indians. There were small crooked lanes, a few dignified by-streets, Penn Street, Duquesne way, Water and Ferry streets. Colonel George Morgan had built a double-hewn log house of considerable dimensions, the first house in the settlement to have a shingle roof. Though the "Manor of Pittsburg" had been surveyed and Fort Pitt had been abandoned by the British under orders of General Gage and occupied by Virginia troops under Captain John Neville. There were some French residents, some Acadians as well, and a few Virginians who were mostly refugees. The houses were of very primitive construction, generally built of logs, but made comfortable on the inside. The emigrants had brought their industries with them. The women spun and knit, there were several rude looms, but they depended largely on Philadelphia for supplies.