Doubtless his association with scouts and camp-followers, largely consisting of fur-traders and frontiersmen, induced a lively interest in their accounts of the western country held by their enemies, the Indian and the Frenchman. Certain it is that Carver acquired such ideas of the extent, fertility, natural wealth, and possibilities of the great and unknown West as fired his adventurous spirit with a firm determination to solve the important geographical problems connected therewith. His objects, he states, were to gain knowledge concerning the Indian tribes to the west of the Mississippi, to ascertain the natural resources of the country, and to cross the American continent between the forty-third and forty-sixth degrees of north latitude. Ultimately he contemplated the establishment of a trading-post at some suitable point on the Pacific Coast. Carver was not ignorant of the great danger involved in such an undertaking, where he was obliged to intrust his life to the mercy of unknown Indians for a prolonged time. Indeed, considering his experiences at the massacre of Englishmen and provincials at Fort Henry, it seems surprising that he would ever trust a savage or a Frenchman. In the campaign of 1757, Carver volunteered to accompany the detachment of fifteen hundred men which General Webb sent forward to reinforce the garrison at Fort Henry, then anticipating an attack from Montcalm. The garrison, commanded by the gallant Monro, who resisted until his guns burst and his ammunition was nearly exhausted, surrendered to the combined force of Indians and French under Montcalm, who promised safe conduct and private property. As the English force moved out the next morning the Indians, inflamed by liquor, song, and dance, butchered the sick and wounded and then fell upon the helpless captives, of whom there were, according to French accounts, about sixty killed and four hundred robbed and maltreated. Montcalm and Levi, to their credit, though too late, made heroic personal efforts which mitigated the horrors of the situation. [Illustration: Indian Tomahawk. (From Carver's Book.)]