Produced by Curtis Weyant, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) MARCHING ON NIAGARA OR THE SOLDIER BOYS OF THE OLD FRONTIER Colonial Series BY EDWARD STRATEMEYER Author of "American Boys' Life of William McKinley," "Lost on the Orinoco," "On to Pekin," "Between Boer and Briton," "Old Glory Series," "Ship and Shore Series," "Bound to Succeed Series," etc. _ILLUSTRATED BY A. B. SHUTE_ BOSTON: LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY LEE AND SHEPARD Published August, 1902 _All rights reserved_ Norwood Press J. S. CUSHING & CO.--BERWICK & SMITH Norwood, Mass. U. S. A. [Illustration: After him tumbled a wild cat.] PREFACE "MARCHING ON NIAGARA" is a complete story in itself, but forms the second of several volumes to be known by the general title of "Colonial Series." In the first volume of this series, entitled "WITH WASHINGTON IN THE WEST," we followed the fortunes of David Morris, the son of a hardy pioneer, who first settled at Will's Creek (now the town of Cumberland, Virginia), and later on established a trading post on one of the tributaries of the Ohio River. This was just previous to the breaking out of war between France and England, and when the French and English settlers in America, especially in those localities where trading with the Indians was profitable, were bitter foes. David becomes well acquainted with Washington while the latter is a surveyor, and when Braddock arrives in America and marches against Fort Duquesne the young pioneer shoulders a musket and joins the Virginia Rangers under Major Washington, to march forth and take part in Braddock's bitter defeat and Washington's masterly effort to save the remnant of the army from total annihilation. The defeat of the British forces left this section of the English colonies at the mercy of both the French and their savage Indian allies, and for two years, despite all that Washington and other colonial leaders could do, every isolated cabin and every small settlement west of Winchester was in constant danger, and numerous raids were made, savage and brutal in the extreme, and these were kept up until the arrival of General Forbes, who, aided by Washington and others, finally compelled the French to abandon Fort Duquesne, and thus restored peace and order to a frontier covering a distance of several hundred miles.