[Illustration: The battle was now on in all its fury.—_Page 287._] Colonial Series TRAIL AND TRADING POST OR THE YOUNG HUNTERS OF THE OHIO BY EDWARD STRATEMEYER Author of “With Washington in the West,” “American Boys’ Life of William McKinley,” “Old Glory Series,” “Pan-American Series,” “Dave Porter Series,” etc. _ILLUSTRATED BY J. W. KENNEDY_ [Illustration] BOSTON LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. Published August, 1906 COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. _All rights reserved_ TRAIL AND TRADING POST Norwood Press BERWICK & SMITH CO. Norwood, Mass. U. S. A. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE “Trail and Trading Post” is a complete story in itself, but forms the sixth and last volume of a line known under the general title of “Colonial Series.” As I have mentioned before, when I started this series I had in mind to write not more than three volumes, telling of colonial times during the war between France and England for the possession of Canada and the territory bordering the Great Lakes. The first book, entitled “With Washington in the West,” told of the disastrous Braddock campaign against Fort Duquesne; the second, called “Marching on Niagara,” gave many of the particulars of General Forbes’s advance against the same French stronghold and likewise the particulars of the advance of Generals Prideaux and Johnson against Fort Niagara; while the third volume, “At the Fall of Montreal,” told of the heroic fighting of General Wolfe at Quebec, and that last contest which brought this long-drawn struggle to a close. The war with France was now over, but the Indians were very bitter against the English, and in a fourth volume, called “On the Trail of Pontiac,” were given the particulars of how that noted red warrior formed a conspiracy among a number of tribes to exterminate the English. The first conspiracy failed to come to a head, but Pontiac was not disheartened, and in a fifth volume, “The Fort in the Wilderness,” were related how the warriors under him laid siege to Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt, and how the English under Colonel Bouquet won the bloody battle of Bushy Run,—the last regular contest with the red men for some years to come.