“Ef he die, an’ I go home, what I gwi’ say when mistis come out and say, ‘Billy, wh’yar yo’ Marse George?’” And at that Billy would throw himself on the ground in a paroxysm of grief that was piteous to see. The doctor carefully concealed from the soldiers George’s real condition. But after four or five days of agony a change set in, and within the week George was able to sit up and even ride a little. The wagons had kept with the rear division of the army, but George knew that General Braddock, with twelve hundred picked men, had gone ahead and must be near Fort Duquesne. On the fourteenth day, in the evening, when the doctor came he found his patient walking about. He was frightfully thin and pale, but youth and strength and good habits were beginning to assert themselves. He was getting well.