And so Washington gave the order to march on the 29th. of April, three score men having been sent ahead to widen the Indian trail. The progress was difficult, and exceedingly slow. In the first ten days the hundred and fifty men covered but twenty miles. Yet each mile must have been anticipated seriously by the young commander. He knew not whether the enemy or his Colonel with reinforcements was nearest. Governor Dinwiddie wrote him (May 4) concerning reinforcements, as follows: “The Independ’t Compa., from So. Car. arriv’d two days ago; is compleat; 100 Men besides Officers, and will re-embark for Alexa next Week, thence proceed imediately to join Colo. Fry and You. The two Independ’t Compa’s from N. York may be Expected in ab’t ten days. The N. Car. Men, under the Com’d of Colo. Innes, are imagin’d to be on their March, and will probably be at the Randezvous ab’t the 15th. Itst.” ... “I hope Capt. McKay, who Com’ds the Independ’t Compa., will soon be with You And as he appears to be an Officer of some Experience and Importance, You will, with Colo. Fry and Colo. Innes, so well agree as not to let some Punctillios ab’t Com’d render the Service You are all engag’d in, perplex’d or obstructed.” Relying implicitly on Dinwiddie, Washington pushed on and on into the wilderness, opening a road and building bridges for a Colonel and an army that was never to come! As he advanced into the Alleghenies he found the difficulty of hauling wagons very serious, and, long before he reached the Youghiogheny, he determined to test the possibility of transportation down that stream and the Monongahela to his destination at the mouth of the Redstone Creek. May 11th. he sent a reconnoitering force forward to Gist’s, on Laurel Hill, the last spur of the Alleghenies, to locate a French party, which, the Indians reported, had left Fort Duquesne, and to find if there was possibility of water transportation to the mouth of Redstone Creek, where a favorable site for a fort was to be sought. Slowly the frail detachment felt its way along to Little Meadows and across the smaller branch of the Youghiogheny which it bridged at “Little Crossings.” On the 16th, according to the French version of Washington’s _Journal_, he met traders who informed him of the appearance of French at Gist’s and who expressed doubts as to the possibility of building a wagon road from Gist’s to the mouth of Redstone Creek. This made it imperatively necessary for the young Lieutenant-Colonel to attempt to find a water passage down the Youghiogheny. The day following much information was received, both from the front and the rear, vividly stated in the _Journal_ as follows: “The Governor informs me that Capt. McKay, with an independent company of 100 men, excluding the officers, had arrived, and that we might expect them daily; and that the men from New-York would join us within ten days.