“Tobe!” called the echoes.
There was no answer. All three looked up wistfully. Then they again conferred together in a low tone.
“Oh, Tobias!” cried the spokesman in a voice of entreaty.
“Tobias!” pleaded the plaintive echoes.
Still there was no answer. The owl screamed suddenly in its weird, shrill tones. It had flown out from among the rafters and perched on the smokeless chimney of the hut. Then its uncanny laughter filled the interval.
Once more the men whispered anxiously to each other. One of them, a tall, ungainly, red-haired fellow, seemed to have evolved a solution of the problem which had baffled them.
“Mister Winkeye!” he exclaimed, with vociferous confidence.
The echoes were forestalled. A sneeze rang out abruptly from the loft of the deserted old barn,—a sneeze resonant, artificial, grotesque enough to set the blades below to roaring with delighted laughter.
“He mus’ hev his joke. Mister Winkeye air a mighty jokified old man,” declared the red-haired fellow.