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!"
His voice rang with hatred and—insanity! But Wolfe was in no condition to take note of the latter. Wolfe was sitting up straight, his eyes glittering, his hands gripping the sides of his homemade chair as though they would crush the wooden splints. For a moment he seemed about to defy the threatening shotgun and attack its owner in spite of his badly injured leg.
But the wicked eagerness he saw in Mayfield's lean face caused him to relax. He did not doubt that Mayfield would pull the trigger at the slightest provocation. It would be best to wait. If he waited, there might be a chance——