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Governor Dinwiddie had already sent Christopher Gist, the pioneer, Washington's guide in 1753, to engage the Cherokees and Catawbas, the bravest of the Southern tribes, who he had no doubt would take up the hatchet for the English, peace being first concluded, through the mediation of his government, between them and the Six Nations; and he gave Braddock reason to expect at least four hundred Indians to join him at Port Cumberland.
The place was bombarded and taken the next year by Amherst and Wolfe, but Halifax was the English headquarters in that region. Before this however, in the summer of 1755, immediately after the defeat of Braddock, an army of New Englanders assembled at Albany to capture Crown Point, where the French had called together every able-bodied man available.
His men were drilled and disciplined until they were automatons, for Braddock was a martinet. Their ranks ran true, their equipment was in the pink of soldierly condition; the sunlight glittered from their bayonets, you could see your face in their leather accouterments, and Braddock proudly marched them into the American woods as though they were parading on the Strand in London.
On the evening of the 20th July, Hunter's division, to which Harold Hare was attached, was bivouacked on the old Braddock Road, about a mile and a half southeast of Centreville. It was midnight. There was a strange and solemn hush throughout the camp, broken only by the hail of the sentinel and the occasional trampling of horses hoofs, as some aid-de-camp galloped hastily along the line.
Dick Ford, however, although he was not a writer, could read, and had quite a fancy for spelling out a newspaper, and he asserted that the year was eighteen hundred and seventy, and so it was put down "180070," much to the disgust of Uncle Braddock, who did not believe it was so much. "Yer ought to say ef it's before Christ or after Christ," said Aunt Judy.
It was not a personal contract upon his part to furnish these; he was neither to make any money, nor to risk any; he was simply to render the gratuitous service of inducing the Pennsylvania farmers to let out their horses, wagons, and drivers to the general. It was a difficult task, in which the emissaries of Braddock had utterly failed in Virginia.
"I guess you have, David," he said shortly. "You're not what you were when you joined us five years ago." A sneer came to his lips. "What a high and mighty chap you've come to be. No wonder you won't shake hands with a jail-bird." "Stop talking, Tom Braddock," said Ruby, a gleam of anxiety in her eyes. "Here's what's left of the lamb and here's " "Wait a minute, Ruby," said he.
So no composition could be arranged; the Seven Years' War began, and to open it with becoming éclat Braddock debarked, a gorgeous spectacle in red and gold.
He's come on this time, I daresay, to bulldoze 'em into 'is way of thinking. He's wonderful persistent. Like as not he'll help Tom out some more afore he leaves, just to draw the web closer. He'll stay a few days, 'anging around 'er like a vulture, paying no attention to 'er rebukes, and then he'll go off to return another day. He's wrecked Tom Braddock, just as a stepping-stone.
Then he walked out to the curb, opened the cab door and coolly motioned for Colonel Grand to step down and enter. Mary Braddock waited no longer. She sped down the steps, passing the slow-moving, stupefied Colonel, and ruthlessly shoved Roberta Grand to one side, taking her stand in front of her husband, facing his foe.
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