evidences as this, that the road followed the invariable laws of Indian trails, is the strongest circumstantial proof that can be asked. "Steep rugged hills were to be clomb," wrote one who followed the army, "headlong declivities to be descended, down which the cannon and wagons were lowered with blocks and tackle."

On into the Alleghanies the little army marched through the narrow aisle freshly hewn each day, unmindful of its doom There is something doubly tragic in Braddock's defeat. The army had undergone such exhaustive trials and was so near the goal when it was suddenly swept by the lurking blast of flame! The army followed the Indian trail until after the sixteenth encampment. On the morning of the seventh of July, Braddock "left the Indian track which he had followed so long," and started for the fort in more direct line across country. Arriving at Turtle Creek, he gave up the attempt and turned back to the Monongahela and the death trap. Braddock's Road was completed, full twelve feet wide, to the northern bank of the Monongahela, where the city of Braddock, Pennsylvania, now stands. It was a rough, winding swath of a road mowed by British grit, ending at a slaughter pen and charnel ground, only seven miles from Fort Duquesne.

beast or man, and that, on the summits of the hills. Here on the hilltops, mounting on the longest ascending ridges, lay the tawny paths of the buffalo and the Indian. They were not only highways, they were the highest ways, and chosen for the best of reasons." - Red Men's Roads," p. 8.

11 History of Braddock's Expedition pp. 203, 351.