Thus Washington's march must be looked upon as the advance of a vanguard opening the road, bridging the streams, preparing the way for the commanding officer and his army. Nor was there, now, need for haste--had it been possible or advisable to hasten. The landing of the French at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela already thwarted Governor Dinwiddie's object in sending out the expedition, "to prevent their [French] building any Forts or making any Settlem'ts on that river, [Ohio] and more particularly so nigh us as that of the Logstown [fifteen miles below the forks of the Ohio]." Now that a fort was building, with an army of a thousand men (as Washington had been erroneously informed) encamped about it, nothing more was to be thought of than a cautious advance. And so Washington gave the order on the 29th of April, three score men having been sent ahead to widen the Indian trail. The march was difficult and exceedingly slow. In the first ten days they covered but twenty miles. Yet each mile must have been anticipated seriously by the young commander. He knew not whether his colonel with reinforcements or the enemy were nearest. Governor Dinwiddie wrote him (May 4) concerning reinforcements, as follows: "The Independ't Compa from So. Car. arriv'd two days ago; is compleat; 100 Men besides Officers, and will re-embark for Alex^a next Week, thence proceed imediately to join Col^o. Fry and You. The two Independ't Compa's from N. York may be Expected in ab'^t ten days. The N. Car. Men, under the Com'^d of Col^o. Innes, are imagin'd to be on their March, and will probably be at the Randezvous ab'^t the 15^{th}. Inst."... "I hope Capt. McKay who Com'ds the Independ't Compa., will soon be with You And as he appears to be an Officer of some Experience and Importance, You will, with Col^o. Fry and Col^o. Innes, so well agree as not to let some Punctillios ab'^t Com'd render the Service You are all engag'd in, perplex'd or obstructed."[7] Relying implicitly on Dinwiddie, Washington pushed on and on into the wilderness, opening a road and building bridges for a colonel and an army that was never to come. As he advanced into the Alleghanies he found the difficulty of hauling wagons very serious, and long before he reached the Youghiogheny he determined to test the possibility of transportation down that stream and the Monongahela to his destination at the mouth of Redstone creek. May 11th, he sent a reconnoitering force forward to Gist's, on Laurel Hill, the last spur of the Alleghanies, to locate a French party, which, the Indians reported, had left Fort Duquesne, and to find if there was possibility of water transportation to the month of Redstone creek, where a favorable site for a fort was to be sought.