"Tot! Tot!"
The rockbound hills sent her name back to him in echoes that were worse than maddening.
"Tot!" he called again; and again came the echo, Tot!
Once more he called, and this time the voice that floated back to him was a little broken. He felt that he was about to fall. He crept dizzily to his chair, pushed it closer to the fire and climbed into it, and put out his hands and feet to warm them.
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!"