Daalders, the Dutch called them, but the word sounded more like the German “Thaler”—dollar. Merchants had been using dollars for nearly a century and a half now, and the Dutch made most of the dollars found in the New World. There were three kinds. There was the ducatoon, better known as the ducat, which had a horse and rider stamped upon it and was worth six English shillings. Next came the rijksdaalder, which the English called the rix dollar, worth five shillings—or eight Spanish real, if you were sailing south. But most common of all was the lion dollar.

It was actually worth a bit less than the other dollars, but it was the most handsome. Its face was larger. On the obverse it showed a standing knight, holding a shield which bore the image of a lion rampant; and on the reverse, the same lion splendidly filled the whole face. The coin had a small fault: it was not always well struck. But that hardly mattered. The handsome Dutch lion dollar was used from New England to the Spanish Main.

“Dutch money,” Tom said with a grin, as van Dyck took the coin out of the box and inspected it.

Lion dollars were usually worn, but this one hadn’t even a scratch. It was new-minted; it shone splendidly. And as the Dutchman gazed at it, a thought suddenly came to him.

Getting up, he went over to where two Indian girls, about the same age as Pale Feather, were sitting. He showed them the coin, letting them hold it. As they turned the shining disk over in their hands, examined the images and the way the falling sun reflected upon it, their faces lit up. Why was it, van Dyck wondered, that gold and silver objects seemed to fascinate both men and women alike? “It is beautiful,” they said. Returning to the young fellow from Boston, van Dyck told him: “I’ll buy it.”

“It will cost you,” Tom considered, “a ducat and a beaver pelt.”

“What? That’s robbery.”

“I’ll throw in the box,” Tom added cheerfully.

“You’re a young rogue,” the Dutchman said, with amusement. “But I’ll take it.” He didn’t bother to bargain. He had just solved his problem. The pelt was a sacrifice he almost felt better for making. For now he had a present for his daughter.

That night, to make sure Tom didn’t steal anything, he slept in his boat. And as he lay back on the pelts, and felt the little wooden box with its silver dollar safe in the pouch on his belt, and listened to the faint breeze in the trees, he imagined that, as she had promised, he could hear his daughter’s voice. And he smiled with contentment.

Van Dyck left the young Englishman in the morning. He’d be at Pale Feather’s village before evening, stay there with his daughter all through tomorrow, and continue to Manhattan the day after that.