He muttered the last sentence as a body of men emerged from the fort.
“Huldah isn’t gone, Armstrong?” said the foremost man, whose wolf-skin cap proclaimed his personality.
“Gone—gone, Belt!”
“Curse the luck! Why didn’t I shoot Matt Hunter, when I caught him tampering with my traps, two years ago?”
“Would to heaven you had.”
Wolf-Cap looked at the settler and then gritted his great teeth till they fairly cracked.
“Matt Hunter took the girl along to buy his own liberty,” he murmured. “Royal Funk will get her now. But he sha’n’t wear her—no! not while my name is Card Belt.”
“Nor while mine is Mark Harmon!”
The trapper started and saw the young borderman standing by his side.
“Your hand on that, boy!” cried the trapper, with a smile, and two hands were clasped and sealed in determination.