“No hurry,” returned the man with an insolent laugh at the quavering of her voice; “don’t disturb yourself so much. I can wait.”
He threw himself down upon one of the benches and pushed back his hat. Hugh felt something like a shudder when he first saw his eyes; they were blue, a pale unlovely blue that looked terrifyingly strange, set in his dark face.
“Hello, friends,” the stranger continued genially. “I thought I would look in and get my mail before I was off down-State to sell my furs. I’ve got a fine lot this year, the best that’s come out of Canada for a long while.”
There was no answer, unless one could call little Eva Stromberg’s frightened squeak a reply, or the uneasy shifting of old Nels Larson’s big feet.
“Would you like to see what I’ve got?” the man went on, seemingly quite untroubled by the lack of friendliness. “You won’t see anything so fine again for quite a month of Sundays, nor anything that’s worth so much money, you poor penny-pinchers. Come here, sis,” he added to one of the smaller children; “you would like to see my furs, now, wouldn’t you?”
The little girl, afraid to disobey, advanced with something of the air of a charmed bird, and came trembling to his side. He opened the big pack and spread out its contents on the floor.
“That’s otter,” he said to her; “don’t be frightened, just feel of it. Isn’t it silky and soft?”
She passed her hand obediently over the silvery brown surface and then, bursting into terrified sobs, ran to take refuge behind her father. The stranger, undisturbed, went on spreading out his wares.
“This wolf skin now should bring me something big,” he said. “Of course wolf isn’t much compared to otter but I’ve never seen finer fur. Step up, folks, and look, it’s a dead wolf that isn’t going to bite you.”
It was Hugh alone who felt sufficient curiosity to come nearer. A wolf skin, an otter skin! He had never seen one before. He came closer and closer as the man unrolled more and more of the soft, furry pelts.