While the majority of the men remained at Great Meadows, Hunter and Elliott were with George Washington exploring the Youghiogheny, a branch of the Monongahela, when a messenger arrived from Monacatootha, the chief who had accompanied the young lieutenant colonel to Fort Le Boeuf the previous fall. Having been humiliated by the French when he had voiced the Indians' demands that they leave the Ohio Valley, he was a staunch ally of the British. Washington had every reason to trust him.
"Monacatootha says the French have left their fort in search of Englishmen to fight. They may be no more than twenty miles distant," Washington warned.
A decision was quickly made to return to Great Meadows and, as the others started back down the river, Elliott drew Hunter aside. "You were hired as a scout, not a soldier. If you wish to leave, as Trent's men did, no one will call you a coward."
Hunter could not look at either Elliott or Byron without being reminded of Melissa. Neither was as blond as his sister, but their eyes were just as vivid a blue. He did not believe she would be favorably impressed if he were to leave her brothers to face the French alone, but he chose not to mention his desire to please her in his reply.
"I won't leave before my job is done, and you still need me to track the French."
"Well, yes, that's true, but—"
Hunter rested his hand lightly on Elliott's shoulder. "I don't carry a musket, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to fire one."
Elliott studied the Indian's sly smile, and readily guessed its meaning. "You're probably the best shot in camp, aren't you?"
"Do you want to arrange a contest?"
Elliott had to laugh. "No, not yet, but I'm glad you'll stay with us. I think you'll bring us luck."
"You are going to need it."
"Yes, I know. Now come on, let's hurry. We don't want to be left behind."
Hunter was not concerned about falling behind and becoming lost, but he could see Elliott was, and hurried him along rather than tease him about it.
Great Meadows was surrounded by wooded hills and on one side furrowed by a gully. As soon as his scouting party returned to camp, Washington set part of his men to work deepening the gully to form an entrenchment, while the others cleared the open field of shrubs to prepare for battle. Rather than help with that effort, Hunter went out to search the woods for the advancing enemy. At dusk he returned to the meadow where most of the men were too excited to eat, but he helped himself to the rice and salt pork the cooks had prepared, and went to sleep early.
The next morning he again scoured the woods for some sign of French soldiers, but returned to camp without having gathered any valuable intelligence. He knew they were coming, but apparently they were moving much slower than anyone had anticipated, or perhaps they were circling wide to approach them from an unexpected direction. Whatever their plan, Hunter did not like it anymore than he relished the thought of battling th
em on a wide plain, where the only cover was a shallow ditch.
The next morning, Christopher Gist paid them a visit. He had served as a guide on Washington's fall expedition, and now lived at a settlement on the far side of Laurel Hill. He had traveled a dozen miles to bring important news.
"There must have been fifty Frenchmen at my house yesterday. They would have stolen everything had the Indians who care for the place not been there. You've enough men here to defeat them easily."
Volunteers were plentiful, and with Gist's directions, seventy-five men went out to search for the French, but they had no better luck than Hunter had in finding them and, discouraged, returned to camp before nightfall. Soon after, another messenger arrived from Monacatootha, who had found suspicious tracks and believed he had discovered where the French were hiding. Taking forty men, Washington led this search party himself. It was now dark and raining, but the men followed in a weary procession that lasted until dawn.
Blessed with greater stamina than most men, Hunter traveled fast and stayed near the head of the line, but occasionally he would drop back to make certain Elliott was still with them. The rain had turned the narrow path into a slippery quagmire that tugged at the soles of the men's boots one minute, and then turned slick as a wet mirror the next. In the darkness, men who stumbled and lagged behind soon found themselves lost in the dense forest, and unable to call out for help for fear of alerting the French, they had to huddle alone until dawn. When Washington at last arrived at the place where Monacatootha was camped with a dozen of his warriors, seven of his soldiers had been lost.
Eager to fight the French, two of Monacatootha's warriors led the way; again traveling in single file, the men of the Virginia Regiment and their Indian allies followed the suspicious tracks to a rocky ravine. Finding a small force of French soldiers encamped there, Washington gave the order to fire. While one Canadian managed to escape, within a few minutes ten of the Frenchmen were killed, including the ensign, Coulon de Jumonville, who was slain by Monacatootha. The fury of the fighting was enough to prompt the surviving twenty-two men to surrender.
Splattered with the blood of their slain comrades, and terrified, the captured men hurriedly explained that they had been sent by the Sieur de Contrecoeur, the commandant of Fort Duquesne, the newly constructed fortress named for the Governor of New France, which now stood on the site originally occupied by Ensign Ward. They swore they had been on a peaceful mission, to deliver a summons warning the English to withdraw from lands belonging to the King of France, or be forced to go.
"How do you expect us to believe you meant to deliver such a summons, when we found you hiding in a ravine?" Washington asked through his interpreter. "Clearly you are spies, not messengers."
"No, that's not true!" one of Frenchmen protested. "We left Fort Duquesne five days ago with orders to deliver the summons to the first Englishman we met. We observed your camp, and as ordered, sent two men with word for Contrecoeur that we intended to speak with you. We were camped here, awaiting his reply."
"That makes absolutely no sense," Washington scoffed. "You were told to seek out any Englishman, but to notify Contrecoeur before you actually approached him?"
"Yes, sir. Those were our orders."
Washington glanced toward Elliott, who shook his head. Such contradictory orders were absurd, unless Contrecoeur had meant to respond with whatever force would be necessary to enforce the summons. If there were a thousand men at Fort Duquesne, why hadn't he sent more than thirty-five in the first place? Washington felt that his first impression was correct: he had surprised a party of spies, who had been told to mention a summons should they be caught. Disgusted, he marched his prisoners back to Great Meadows under heavy guard.
* * *
Their return with French prisoners was greeted with celebration, but fearing a swift reprisal from Fort Duquesne, Washington quickly channeled his troops' energy into building a log stockade, which was aptly named Fort Necessity. Monacatootha arrived with a woman known as Queen Alequippa, and more than two dozen braves and their families. Their force still dangerously small, however, Washington sent Christopher Gist to Will's Creek to urge Colonel Fry to bring up the rest of the regiment.
Gist returned with the sad news that Colonel Fry had fallen ill and died, but the remaining three companies of the regiment soon marched into camp, swelling Washington's force to three hundred. They were followed by a company of British regulars from South Carolina, commanded by a Captain Mackay. Mackay's commission had been granted by the king, and he was unwilling to take orders from Washington, who had been appointed by the governor of Virginia. The soldiers under his command were no more cooperative, and refused to work without extra pay.