ginia was now divided for purposes of defense, a position for which he was as fitted by inclination as by frontier experience.
This lad now received Dinwiddie's appointment. As a practical surveyor in the wilderness he possessed frontiersman's qualifications; as an apt and diligent student of military science, with a brother—trained under Admiral Vernon—as a practical tutor, he had in a degree a soldier's qualifications; if not a diplomat he was as shrewd a lad as chivalrous old Virginia had within her borders, still, at twenty-one, that boy of the sixty maxims, but hardened, steadied and made exceeding thoughtful by his life on Virginia's great black forest-bound horizon. All in all, he was far better fitted for this mission than any one could have known or guessed. His keen eye, quick perception, and daring spirit were now to be turned to something of more moment than links and chains or a shabby line of Virginian militia.
It is not to be doubted that George Washington knew the danger he courted, at least very much better than we can appreciate it today. He had not lived
