As the cold's numbness left him, his mind became clearer. He began to look about him. Tot's spare clothing lay nicely folded on a shelf beside his own, as usual. Tot's rifle was not in its place over the smoked log mantel. Every cent of their savings and the other money was gone. The bed was rumpled badly on one side. A few scattered bits of food and an unwashed frying-pan on the rough dining-table gave it a distinctly untidy appearance. These tokens offered Wolfe scant reason to hope that his wife was safe. All manner of fearful possibilities came to torture his already over-wrought brain. Perhaps---- His thoughts were broken into rudely by the sounds of masculine footsteps in the crusty snow beyond the doorstep. A rasping voice began to sing a snatch of foolish song: "Sally she had a dream last night; It was a pow'ful droll one. She dremp' she had a petticoat Made o' her mammy's old one!" Wolfe switched his gaze toward the open doorway. Cat-Eye Mayfield entered and stamped the snow from his run-over cowhide boots noisily. In one hand he carried the rusty, old-fashioned, muzzle-loading shotgun that he had lost a few evenings before. "And so ye got back, did ye?" he said hoarsely; he was suffering from a severe cold in his throat. "I told ye it wouldn't take more'n three days o' good, hard crawlin' like a lizard, didn't I?" "Where's my wife?" Wolfe demanded. Mayfield laughed gratingly. It was not forced. Wolfe's anxiety delighted him. He dropped into the other homemade chair and trained the shotgun across his lap, straight at Wolfe's face. "Where's my wife?" "Now you jest be keerful 'at ye don't start somethin' 'at ye cain't stop," Mayfield warned, at the same time thumbing back the old muzzle-loader's hammer. It was a clumsy thing. "I'll tell ye whar yore wife is at, Little Buck, in my own good time, and not a minute afore; please git that, will ye? "I reckon," he went on forthwith, "you're a-wonderin' what I've done about the rifles and the money, hain't ye? Well, I broke Tot's rifle, and throwed it in the lake; I hid yore rifle whar I hid the money. This here old shotgun is all the weapon I want fo' you. I hain't a-wantin' to kill ye. It would end yore mis'ry too soon. I want ye to suffer a long time, and I'm a-goin' to make ye suffer a long time! The' hain't nary grain o' lead in this here old gun. The' hain't nothin' but powder--six loads o' powder, all tamped in tight wi' clay. You couldn't never guess what I'm a-goin' to do with it, so I'll tell ye. "I'm a-goin' to shoot ye in the face wi' powder, and black it fo' good jest like a nigger's, and put yore eyes out--atter I've told ye what I've got to tell ye. Fust off, you're a-goin' to spend the rest o' yore days a-wanderin' in Doe River Wilderness as blind as a bat, a-eatin' leaves and grass and roots--keerful ther, Little Buck Wolfe, or I'll shoot right now!"