Huldah, released, started back and gazed bewildered upon the corpse. Her unexpected delivery had stunned her senses, for she did not move nor take her eyes from the dead until a hand encircled her arm.
Then she started violently, and recognized her new captor with a shriek.
“Mine again, and forever, girl!” cried the outlaw, as he jerked her from the ground, and then he asked, quickly, “Who chased you?”
“You shall see presently,” she cried, casting a quick, wishful look toward the river.
“Not Indians, as I know,” said Funk, reading the language of her eyes. “Well, we’ll outwit ’em, Huldah, whoever they be. Roy Funk is alone in the world now. His boys are all dead, and he wants somebody to cheer his heart.”
He spoke the last words while he was running, with our heroine in his arms, in a northerly direction, and at no insignificant pace.
“If I know these woods, we’re not far from a place of safety. Whoever hunts you shall never take you back to the old stamping-ground. Huldah Armstrong, you will not believe me, perhaps, when I say I love you. I do, earnestly, truly, and with a pure love. You could make a man of Royal Funk, if you would. Your obstinacy, coupled with your pretty face, has caused me to act as I have. If the stars love their Creator and the dove his burnished sweetheart, I love you. Your lovers are out of the way, now—all save Royal Funk, I mean. Will you not wean him from his wild life by loving him? Will you not be the making of a man?”
He looked down into the girl’s eyes, as he spoke, with genuine earnestness, and for a moment his footsteps were the only noise-makers in the great forest.
Then she answered him:
“Royal Funk, do not seek my love. It can never be yours.”