"I'm afraid General Braddock's defeat will cause us lots of trouble in the future. Mr. Risley was telling me that he had heard the Indians over at Plum Valley were as impudent as they could be. He said half a dozen of 'em made a settler named Hochstein give 'em all they wanted to eat and drink, and when the German found fault they flourished their tomahawks and told him all the settlers but the French were squaws and that he had better shut up or they'd scalp him and burn down his cabin."

"Yes, Sam Barringford was telling something about that, too, and he said he wouldn't be surprised to hear of an Indian uprising at any time. You see, the French are backing the redskins up in everything and that makes them bold. If I had my way, I'd get Colonel Washington to raise an army of three or four thousand men—the best frontiersmen to be found—and I'd chase every impudent Frenchman out of the country. We won't have peace till that is done, mark my words on it," concluded Henry Morris, emphatically.

David and Henry Morris were cousins, living with their folks on a clearing not far from what was then known as Will's Creek, now the town of Cumberland, Virginia. The two families consisted of Dave and his father, Mr. James Morris, who was a widower, and Mr. Joseph Morris, his wife Lucy, and three children, Rodney, the oldest, who was something of a cripple, Henry, who has just been introduced, and little Nell, the sunshine of the whole home.

In a former volume of this series, entitled "With Washington in the West," I related the particulars of how the two Morris families settled at Will's Creek, and how James Morris, after the loss of his wife, wandered westward, and established a trading-post on the Kinotah, one of the numerous branches of the Ohio River. In the meantime Dave, his son, fell in with George Washington, when the future President was a surveyor, and the youth helped to survey many tracts of land in the beautiful Shenandoah valley.

At this time the colonies of England and of France in America were having a great deal of trouble between themselves and with the Indians. Briefly stated, both England and France claimed all the territory drained by the Ohio and other nearby rivers, and the French sought in every possible way to drive out English traders who pushed westward.

The driving out of the English traders soon brought trouble to James Morris, and after being attacked by a band of Indians he was served with a notice from the French to quit his trading-post in three months' time or less. Unwilling to give 

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