"It's his iron constitution that pulled him through. Many another soldier
would have caved in clean and clear. But hurry up, if you want to get home
before dark," and so speaking, Henry Morris set off through the woods at a
faster pace than ever, with his cousin close at his heels. Each carried his
game-bag on his back and a flint-lock musket over his shoulder.

The time was early in the year 1761, but a few months after the fall of
Montreal had brought the war between France and England in America to a
close. Canada was now in the possession of the British, and the settlers in
our colonies along the great Atlantic seacoast, and on the frontier
westward, were looking for a long spell of peace in which they might regain
that which had been lost, or establish themselves in new localities which
promised well.

As already mentioned, Dave and Henry Morris were cousins, Henry being the
older by several years. They lived in the little settlement of Will's
Creek, Virginia, close to where the town of Cumberland stands to-day. The
Morris household consisted of Dave's father, Mr. James Morris, who was a
widower, and Mr. Joseph Morris, his wife Lucy, and their children, Rodney,
several years older than Henry, who came next, and Nell, a girl of about
six, who was the household pet. In years gone by Rodney had been a good
deal of a cripple, but a surgical operation had done wonders for him and
now he was almost as strong as any of the others.

James Morris was a natural born trapper and fur trader, and when his wife
died he left his son Dave in the care of his brother Joseph and wandered to
the west, where he established a trading-post on the Kinotah, a small
stream flowing into the Ohio River. This was at the time that George
Washington, the future President of our country, was a young surveyor, and
in the first volume of this series, entitled "With Washington in the West,"