From the conversation which she overheard the woman concluded that, after all, she had been mistaken, not only about these two, but about the young man who had come earlier in the day and purchased food from her, for the description the tramp gave of the fugitive tallied exactly with that of the young man.

It seemed incredible that so honest looking a man could be a murderer.  The good woman was shocked, and not a little unstrung by the thought that she had been in the house alone when he had come and that if he had wished to he could easily have murdered her.

“I hope they get him,” she said, when the tramp had concluded his talk with Kansas City.  “It’s awful the carryings on they is nowadays.  Why a body can’t never tell who to trust, and I thought him such a nice young man.  And he paid me for what he got, too.”

The dog, bored by the inaction, had wandered back into the summer kitchen and resumed his broken slumber.  One of the tramps was leaning against the wall talking with the farmer woman.  The other was busily engaged in scratching his right shin with what remained of the heel of his left shoe.  He supported himself with one hand on a small table upon the top of which was a family Bible.

Quite unexpectedly he lost his balance, the table tipped, he was thrown still farther over toward it, and all in the flash of an eye tramp, table, and family Bible crashed to the floor.

With a little cry of alarm the woman rushed forward to gather up the Holy Book, in her haste forgetting the shotgun and leaving it behind her leaning against the arm of a chair.

Almost simultaneously the two tramps saw the real cause of her perturbation.  The large book had fallen upon its back, open; and as several of the leaves turned over before coming to rest their eyes went wide at what was revealed between.

United States currency in denominations of five, ten, and twenty-dollar bills lay snugly inserted between the leaves of the Bible.  The tramp who lay on the floor, as yet too surprised to attempt to rise, rolled over and seized the book as a football player seizes the pigskin after a fumble, covering it with his body, his arms, and sticking out his elbows as a further protection to the invaluable thing.

At the first cry of the woman the dog rose, growling, and bounded into the room.  The tramp leaning against the wall saw the brute coming—­a mongrel hound-dog, bristling and savage.

The shotgun stood almost within the man’s reach—­a step and it was in his hands.  As though sensing the fellow’s intentions the dog wheeled from the tramp upon the floor, toward whom he had leaped, and sprang for the other ragged scoundrel.

The muzzle of the gun met him halfway.  There was a deafening roar.  The dog collapsed to the floor, his chest torn out.  Now the woman began to scream for help; but in an instant both the tramps were upon her choking her to silence.