the burning curiosity of hundreds of others had he mentioned the reason he gave those suspicious chieftains for this five-hundred-mile journey in the wintry season to a miserable little French fort on Rivière aux Bœufs! It is safe to assume that, could he have given the real reasons, he would have been saved the difficulty of providing "satisfactory" ones.
For four days Washington remained, but on the 30th he set out northward, accompanied only by the faithful Half King and three other Indians, and on the 4th of December (after four "nights' sleep") the party arrived at the mouth of Rivière aux Bœufs, where Joncaire was wintering in Frazier's cabin. The seventy miles from Logstown were traversed at about the same poor rate as the 125 from Wills Creek. To Joncaire's cabin, over which floated the French flag, the Virginian envoy immediately repaired. He was received with much courtesy, though, as he well knew, Legardeur de St. Pierre at Fort La Bœuf, the successor of the dead Marin, was the French commandant to whom his letter from Dinwiddie must go.
