The first stop the travelers made was at a rough lodge house where one of Lord Fairfax's bailiffs lived, and here the actual work of surveying began. Spring was rapidly coming, and young George Washington was by no means blind to the beauties of the country in that season. He tried, however, to look about him with a practical eye. He studied the valley for building sites. He examined the soil. He made carefully measured maps and drawings, after using his surveyor's rod and chain. When he had learned all that he wanted of this locality, he followed the valley down toward the Potomac, he and Fairfax camping out at nights under the trees, sleeping beside a watch-fire, and keeping ever on the alert for attack by Indians or wild animals.
When they had reached the river they found it so swollen with spring floods that there seemed no way of crossing it. Finally, however, they met an Indian with a birch-bark canoe and bargained with him to take them across. In this way, swimming their horses, they reached the Maryland side, and set out again westward.
Shortly after they had left the river they came to a planter's house where they stayed over night. The next day they were surprised by the arrival of a war party of thirty Indians carrying scalps won in battle. The planter knew how to treat the Indians, and soon made friends with them by offering them whiskey. George had seen little of the red men and begged them to hold a war-dance.
The white men and the red went out into a meadow and there built a fire, round which the braves took their seats. The chief made a speech telling of the tribe's deeds of valor, and calling on the warriors to win new triumphs. Gradually one by one the reclining members of the band rose and circled about the fire in a slow swinging step. Two Indians at a little distance beat upon a rough drum made of wood covered with deerskin and half filled with water.
As the chief's voice rose higher and higher and the music grew louder and louder, more and more men joined the dance, until finally all the tribe was dancing about the fire, and their pace grew ever faster. Now, from time to time, one would leap in the air uttering savage cries and yells, then another, and finally all seemed absolutely lost in a sort of demon's frenzy. Suddenly, at a sharp command from the chief, the dance and the music ceased, and the warriors came up to their white friends smiling and asking for more whiskey.