We laid there half an hour, maybe, and were just about ready to give it up, when Mark shoved his elbow into my ribs and says hush in my ear. I listened. Sure enough, I could hear somebody shuffling along the road. We held our breaths and waited. In a minute a man came in sight. He was a short man, and looked sort of funny even at a distance. Somehow he didn’t look American. When he got closer we saw he wasn’t American, but some sort of a foreigner. He didn’t look like he was used to wearing American clothes, for they didn’t set natural on him. About ten feet behind him came another man that looked enough like him to be his twin brother. They were sort of dark, but I knew right off they weren’t Indians, and their eyes were black and different from any eyes I’d ever seen. I wondered what country they could have come from.
They didn’t say a word, but just mogged along as if they’d been walking a long ways and had quite a ways to go yet. When they were out of sight I whispered to Mark:
“Italians, d’you think?”
“No,” says he, thoughtful-like.
“Not Indians,” says I.
“No,” says he.
“What then?” says I.
“Can’t quite make out. Did you notice their eyes?”
“Yes,” says I.
“Sort of s-s-slantin’, wasn’t they?”