As has been said, Lord Fairfax’s estate in Virginia extended beyond the Blue Ridge, and to a considerable distance up the eastern slope of the Alleghanies. West of the former range no survey had ever been made, and reports had come that the country was filling up with lawless squatters, who invariably selected the best lands for settlement, and were in danger of gaining such a foothold that to oust them would be a matter of no little difficulty. Lord Fairfax desired a survey of this wild and uncivilized territory to be made. It was a service requiring not only skill as a surveyor, but ability to endure great fatigue, courage to face danger, determination and ingenuity to meet and overcome difficulties—yet all these qualities he deemed combined in Washington, who had barely reached the age of sixteen years. The committing of so important a trust to one so young seems almost inconceivable, and this fact is one of the best indications of what the youth must have been, not only in bone and muscle, but in brain, self-reliance and maturity, at an age when most boys are thinking more of their balls and kites than of the serious duties of life. [Illustration: WASHINGTON ON A SURVEYING EXPEDITION.] Washington eagerly accepted the proposal of Lord Fairfax, and immediately set about his preparations for departure, which occupied but a few days. In company with George William Fairfax, a young man of twenty-two years, son of William Fairfax, he set out in the saddle, during the month of March, 1748. Mr. John S. C. Abbott, in his ‘Life of Washington,’ describes the experience of the young men in a manner characteristically picturesque. He says: