It proved a rough voyage! A fierce, early winter came out of the north, as though in league with the French to intimidate, if not drive back, these spies of French aggression. It rained and snowed, and the little roadway became well nigh impassable. The brown mountain ranges, which until recently had been burnished with the glory of a mountain autumn, were wet and black. Scarce eighteen miles were covered a day, a whole week being exhausted in reaching the Monongahela. But this was not altogether unfortunate. A week was not too long for the future Father of the West to study the hills and valleys which were to bear forever the precious favor of his devoted and untiring zeal. And in this week this youth conceived a dream and a purpose, the dearest, if not the most dominant, of his life--the union, commercial as well as political, of the East and the West. Yet he passed Great Meadows without seeing Fort Necessity, Braddock’s Run without seeing Braddock’s unmarked grave, and Laurel Hill without a premonition of the covert in the valley below, where shortly he should shape the stones above a Frenchman’s grave. But could he have seen it all--the wasted labor, nights spent in agony of suspense, humiliation, defeat and the dead and dying--would it have turned him back? The first roof to offer Washington hospitable shelter was the cabin of the trader Frazier at the mouth of Turtle Creek, on the Monongahela, near the death-trap where soon that desperate horde of French and Indians should put to flight an army five times its own number. Here information was at hand, for it was none other than this Frazier who had been driven from Venango but a few weeks before by the French force sent there to build a fort. Joncaire was spending the winter in Frazier’s old cabin, and no doubt the young Virginian heard this irrepressible French officer’s title read clear in strong German oaths. Here too was a Speech, with a string of wampum accompanying, on its way from the anti-French Indians on the Ohio to Governor Dinwiddie, bringing the ominous news that the Chippewas, Ottawas and Wyandots had taken up the hatchet against the English. Washington took the Speech and the wampum and pushed on undismayed. Sending the baggage down the Monongahela by boat he pushed on overland to the “Forks” where he chose a site for a fort, the future site, first, of Fort Duquesne, and later, Fort Pitt. But his immediate destination was the Indian village of Loggstown, fifteen miles down the Ohio. On his way thither he stopped at the lodge of Shingiss, a Delaware King, and secured the promise of his attendance upon the council of anti-French (though not necessarily pro-English) Indians. For this was the Virginian envoy’s first task--to make a strong bid for the allegiance of the redmen; it was not more than suggested in his instructions, but was none the less imperative, as he well knew whether his superiors did or not.