"But," faltered the mother, "if he is friendly to the Indians, he may not be safe for us to know."
Mr. Holman was sure of his harmless character. "The French never incited the Indians to cruelty. Their influence was all for peaceful barter. He wants to buy any pelts we have for sale and to trade with us."
The mother's New England habits made her long for any kind of a trader to dicker with. No matter how outlandish his garb nor how strange his manner, a peddler was a peddler, and as such she was glad to see him.
So they opened wide the door and called a welcome.
As Doby examined the voyageur at close range, he thought, "I never did see such a wild-looking man," yet the stranger's joyous face, his quick gestures, and his lilting music drew the boy to him irresistibly.
For Doby's pleasure, after the greetings were over, the guest sang the words of his song and then he piped it, as a plover might have done. He whistled the tune and then he trotted it. He changed to calls of feathered songsters and to other measures and to different steps.
Whatever the melody or whatever the dance; whether he sang or whistled or piped, he was a constant swirl of music and laughter and motion. Into Doby's sober life he came as a figure of purest joy, never to be forgotten—a faun of the forest—a creature of fantasy.
To live out of doors and to follow the seasons, to be away from all care, and free to take up the next trading path that beckoned him in the strange new country—that was a voyageur's happy life.