The ax, the cross-cut saw, and the draw-knife cut the material for the heavy building. The father's Barlow knife and the son's stone one fashioned all the finer work upon it.
When the big fireplace was finished, Doby could sit in the glow of the back log with his foxhound at his knee in the long autumn evenings, and set his knife to the interesting task of making the utensils which the household needed. After that came the joy of whittling animal-traps, fiddles, darts, drums, bows and arrows, snow-shoes, sleds—anything—everything—the happiest boy in the world could want!
XIII
THE VOYAGEUR
The French Who Followed the Explorers
THERE was a glint of sun on metal. It came through the branches of the willows at the edge of the homestead clearing. A bit of red cloth wavered beside it.
Again the metal shone with a twinkling flash, again the scarlet patch nodded in the light. Beneath the willows the prow of a canoe pushed silently from the Wabash River into the mouth of a little creek that wandered through the farm.
Obadiah Holman crouched motionless like a rabbit when he caught that flash. At the canoe's movement forward he bounded toward home, as a frightened rabbit leaps from danger.
"Indians!" he signaled to his father. "Indians!"