At night all returned, none the wiser for their vigilance and labor. The French force had disappeared from the face of the earth. It may be believed that this lack of information did not tend to ease the intense strain of the hour. It must have been plain to the dullest that serious things were ahead. Two flags, silken emblems of an immemorial hatred, were being brought together in the Alleghanies. It was a moment of utmost importance to Europe and America. Quebec and Jamestown were met on Laurel Hill; and a spark struck here and now was to "set the world on fire." However clearly this may have been seen, Washington was not the man to withdraw. Indeed, the celerity with which he precipitated England and France into war made him the most criticized man on both continents. Another day passed--and the French could not be found. On the following day Christopher Gist arrived at Great Meadows with the information that M. la Force with fifty men (whose tracks he had seen within five miles of Great Meadows) had been at his house on "Mount Braddock," fifteen miles distant. Acting on this reliable information, Washington at once dispatched a scouting party in pursuit. The day passed and no word came to the anxious men in their trenches in the meadows. Another night, silent and cheerless, came over the mountains upon the valley, and with the night came rain. Fresh fears of strategy and surprise must have arisen as the cheerless sun went down. Suddenly, at eight in the evening, a runner brought word that the French were run to cover. Half King, while coming to join Washington, had found La Force's party in "a low, obscure place." It was now time for a daring man to show himself. Such was the young commander at Great Meadows. "That very moment," wrote Washington in his _Journal_, "I sent out forty men and ordered my ammunition to be put in a place of safety, fearing it to be a stratagem of the French to attack our camp; I left a guard to defend it, and with the rest of my men set out in a heavy rain, and in a night as dark as pitch." Perhaps a war was never precipitated under stranger circumstances. Contrecoeur, commanding at Fort Duquesne, was made aware by his Indian scouts of Washington's progress all the way from the Potomac. The day before Washington arrived at Great Meadows, Contrecoeur ordered M. de Jumonville to leave Fort Duquesne with a detachment of thirty-four men, commanded by La Force, and go toward the advancing English. To the English (when he met them) he was to explain he had come to order them to retire. To the Indians he was to pretend he was "traveling about to see what is transacting in the King's Territories, and to take notice of the different roads." In the eyes of the English the party was to be an embassy. In the eyes of the Indians, a party of scouts reconnoitering. This is clear from the orders given by Contrecoeur to Jumonville.