The voyageur, plainly interested, hastened to get the pelts, to spread them out, and to indicate, now that his best moment had come, that these two bearskins plus two big beaverskins--the finest of their collection--were the price of the rifle. Privately, Mr. Holman thought this rather a hard bargain, even more than the "much gain" which the trader was entitled to have. Beaver had been scarce and high in value for two years. A good beaver, taken in October, outpriced an August bear whose winter coat was coming well but was not yet in its prime. One glance at Doby's face brought to the father's mind the day when he had acquired his own flintlock; so he nodded indulgently to close the deal. The voyageur's words, "It is that you become owner, m'sieu," were the sweetest of sounds in Doby's ears. Then followed a blissful hour of target-shooting, to learn the ways of the new gun, and then followed, as a matter of course, the over-confident moment when the excited boy let the trigger down upon a clumsy thumb. As his father patiently dressed his wound, Doby's conscience--that New England torch always flickering before his mind--threw its light on a point of conduct he had not noticed until this moment. He saw that he ought to do something that he did not want to do. The voyageur, chuckling cozily by the hearth, with his picturesque head abob, never knew that the half-grown Doby, who sat staring at his bandaged thumb, was struggling with spiritual forces that nearly tore his heart asunder. No stranger could guess how great a victory over his own selfish desires the boy had won when he raised his face to his father's and said, "I think, pa, that you should take this new rifle for your own gun and give me the old flintlock." Doby's father was of upright stuff himself; and he now saw that his son, also, had the making of a just man in him. So he looked at Doby kindly, and the two understood each other perfectly. But all the father said was: "I've had my old flintlock ever since I was your age. I use it every day. I couldn't learn the tricks of one of these newfangled rifles. No, Doby, you can't swap firearms with your pa!" XIV THE BEAVERS' DAM _A Patriot's Sacrifice_ He stood upon a bluff overlooking the Wabash. Outlined against an autumn sunset, his noble figure dominated the landscape. A velvet cap with a jaunty plume rested lightly upon his short, snow-white, curling hair. Velvet also were his coat and breeches and the sweeping cavalier cape that clasped on his shoulder. Silken hose and fine linen added to the magnificence of his costume. It was of a style long gone by, even then, but its sumptuous fashion became him and set off his sturdy old age to its best advantage. His dress was a habit. He wore it unconsciously. But the sword on his hip--that was another matter!