That was a question which our hero found some difficulty in answering. But at length he rolled over on the form and sat up to look at his host. "What do you advise?" he asked. "I have a letter here which I wish to deliver at Charlestown, and I should like to find out what has happened to my father. After that I shall join some band of scouts, and fight the French and their Indians. I suppose they mean to drive us all out of the country, and take it for themselves?" There was an emphatic nod in answer to his question, and then for a while the two sat staring at the fire, each busy with his thoughts. For who could doubt that the total extermination of the British colonists was intended? The French were rapidly pushing south and east, and in front of them ran a swarm of their Indians, massacring and slaying, and steadily pushing back the British settlers. To understand the position of affairs, and the facts which had led up to the moment when Steve and his friends arrived at the camp where George Washington and his small army had settled themselves on the Alleghany Mountains, it would be well for the reader to study a map of North America, and trace for himself the possessions held by the French and the English. For it must be remembered that these two nations, each jealous of the other, and often at war with each other, had sent their settlers and pioneers to this huge continent of North America. To describe how the first of those settlers landed, how they fought their way from the coast and conquered the forests, would be to enter upon a subject which would need abundant space and more attention than can be given here. But the history of those days is filled to repletion with tales of gallant deeds, of perseverance against great suffering and difficulty, and of final and glorious success. It will be sufficient perhaps if we say, when dealing with the British colonies, that Quakers and Puritans, together with others from England and Wales, also Scotchmen and Irishmen, found their way to the eastern shores of North America, and having dealt with the Indians, finally founded states, thirteen in number, stretching from New England in the north to infant Georgia in the south. Let the reader glance down the eastern coast of the map, and he will trace these thirteen States without difficulty, and will notice that, while each has easy access to the sea, where the coast naturally limits further extension in that direction, to the west there is a huge sweep of country running right across to the Pacific coast, but broken here and there by mountain and river and vast inland lakes. Then let him take those States in their order from the north, and ascertain what reason there was why each one should not extend to the west till her people flooded the whole continent.