His first guess, that they were tramps, proved to be correct. Both had all the marks of vagrants. Their clothes were ragged and dirty, their hair long and uncombed, and their faces were covered with scraggy beards.
One was tall and lank, and seemed to be the leader of the two. His eyes were little and close together. He had no socks, and his toes showed through his ragged shoes. His only other clothing was a torn shirt, opened at the throat, and a pair of old trousers held up by one suspender. Up near his temple was an ugly scar, that looked as though it had been made by a knife.
His companion was shorter and stockier. His clothes were on a par with those of his “pal,” and he looked equally “down and out.”
A partly emptied bottle stood on the floor beside them, and their flushed faces and the glassy look of their eyes told what had become of most of its contents.
“I tell you, I heard something,” the shorter of the two was saying.
“You’re woozy,” answered the other. “It’s only the dog a-barkin’. He’s treed a squirrel, or he’s diggin’ out a woodchuck, or somethin’.”
But, true to the laziness that had made them what they were, neither took the trouble to go to see what the disturbance was about.
“So you think we can get away with that job all right?” asked one, evidently resuming a talk that had been interrupted.
“Sure thing,” said the other. “Why, it’s a cinch. A blind man can do it. I took a squint at the place this mornin’, an’ it’s like taking candy from a baby.”
Fred strained his ears to listen.