“Well, Miss Huldah, we are going to leave the old fire-lands, and we’re never coming back any more. What do you think about that?”
For a moment the settler’s child said nothing. She stood before the outlaw in the little tent which Colonel O’Neill had given him, when they were on better terms than now, and looked up into his darkly handsome face.
“Of course, sir, I do not wish to go,” were the words that fell from her lips, at last. “But I know ’tis useless for me to appeal to you.”
“Utterly useless, Huldah,” he answered, calmly. “I will offer you no violence, and none shall come to you from any one. But let me tell you now that I am very passionate, and that no hand shall snatch you from me. I will make no avowal of love; this is not the place for such; but if I did not love you I would return you to the old man who, in your presence calls you child. Huldah, tell me how many lovers you possess?”
“None, unless I must regard you as such,” she answered, with a faint smile.
“You should have thought a moment before you spoke. There’s Wolf-Cap—”
“His hair is gray in many places,” said Huldah, interrupting him. “He is not my lover.”
“Granted; but hasn’t some young hunter in Fort Strong looked softly into your eyes? Speak truly, Huldah Armstrong—I want to know.”
For a moment the settler’s daughter recalled the daring young men who had bravely defended their loved ones in the besieged fort, and a flush of crimson mantled her fair cheeks.
“I think I have no lover,” she said, looking up again.