Washington huddled his army on this May afternoon were at the eastern edge of the western basin. Back of him was the narrow neck of lowland which soon opened into the eastern basin. Behind him to his left on the hillside his newly made road crept eastward into the hills. The Indian trail followed the edge of the forest westward to Laurel Hill, five miles distant, and on to Fort Duquesne.
On this faint opening into the western forest the little band and its youthful commander kept their eyes as the sun dropped behind the hills, closing an anxious day and bringing a dreaded night. How large the body of French might have been, not one of the one hundred and fifty men knew. How far away they might be, no one could guess. Here in this forest meadow the little vanguard slept on their arms, surrounded by watchful sentinels, with fifty-one miles of forest and mountain between them and the nearest settlement at Wills Creek. The darkling forests crept down the hills on either side as though to hint by their portentous shadows of the dead and dying that were to be.
