A few days after that they came to the banks of a wide river. You may find it on your map of Pennsylvania. It is called the Allegheny River, and runs into the Ohio. It had been frozen, for it was winter time; but now the ice was broken and floating swiftly down the stream. What were they to do? They had to get across that stream. The only plan they could think of was to build a raft out of logs and try to push it through the ice with long poles. This they did, and were soon out on the wild river and among the floating ice. It was a terrible passage. The great cakes of ice came swirling along and striking like heavy hammers against the raft, almost hard enough to knock it to pieces. One of these heavy ice cakes struck the pole of the young traveler, and gave him such a shock that he fell from the raft into the freezing cold water. He had a hard enough scramble to get back on the raft again. After a while they reached a little island in the stream and got ashore. There was no wood on it and they could not make a fire, so they had to walk about all night to keep from freezing. The young man was wet to the skin, but he had young blood and did not suffer as much as the older man with him. When morning came they found that the ice was frozen fast between the island and the other shore, so all they had to do was to walk across it. These were not the only adventures they had, but they got safe back to Virginia, from which they had set out months before. Do you want to know who this young traveler was? His name was George Washington. That is all I need say. Any one who does not know who George Washington was is not much of an American. But quite likely you do not guess what he was doing in the woods so far away from his home. He had been sent there by the governor of Virginia, and I shall have to tell you why. But first you must go back with me to an earlier time. The time I mean is when the French were settling in Canada along the St. Lawrence River, and going west over the lakes, and floating in canoes down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Wherever they went they built forts and claimed the country for their king. At the same time the English were settling along the Atlantic shores and pushing slowly back into the country. You should know that the French and the English were not the best of friends. They had their wars in Europe, and every time they got into war there they began to fight in America also. This made terrible times in the new country. The French had many of the Indians on their side, and they marched through the woods and attacked some of the English towns, and the cruel Indians murdered many of the poor settlers who had done them no harm. There were three such wars, lasting for many years, and a great many innocent men, women and children, who had nothing to do with the wars in Europe, lost their lives. That is what we call war. It is bad enough now, but it was worse still in those days.