“No,” answered the girl, scornfully and quickly.
“Needn’t get riled ’bout it,” said the father, bluntly. “Who is he, anyway?”
“A wounded stranger whose life I have been trying to save.”
“I s’pose you’re in love with him, eh?” asked Kendrick, with a covert glance from under his heavy brows at the girl.
“In love with him! What good would it do me to fall in love with any decent white man? Am I not your daughter? the child of a renegade?” exclaimed the girl, bitterly.
“Better come with me and I’ll find you a husband in some of the great chiefs of the Shawnee nation.”
“I’d blow out my brains with my own rifle first,” cried the girl, angrily.
“Don’t get your back up; I only suggested it. You’ve got the temper of an angel, you have. If you ever do get a husband, you’ll comb his hair with a three-legged stool, I reckon, whether his skin is white or red.”
The girl made no reply, but turned away her head with a look of scorn.
“Seein’ as how I was ’round the clearing I thought I’d call in and see how you was. I didn’t expect to find the old cabin turned into a hospital.”