The old man chuckled.  “Stole a racer—­that’s about all they knew—­you got off easy!” He was peering toward them.

The larger of the two figures straightened itself.  “I am sick of it—­I tell you!—­my back’s broke!” He moved himself in the dusk, stretching out his great arms and looking about him vaguely.

The old man eyed him shrewdly.  “You’re earning a good pile,” he said.

“Yes, one-seventy-five a day!” The man laughed a little.

The other man had not spoken.  He slipped forward through the dusk.  “Supper ready?” he asked.

They followed him into the house, stopping in an entry to wash their hands and remove their heavy shoes.  Through the door opening to a room beyond, a woman could be seen, moving briskly, and the smell of cooking floated out.  They sniffed at it hungrily.

The woman came to the door.  “Hurry up, boys—­everything’s done to death!”

They came in hastily, with half-dried hands, and she looked at them—­a laugh in her round, keen face.  “You have had a day!” she said.  She was tall and angular, and her face had a sudden roundness—­a kind of motherly, Dutch doll, set on its high, lean frame.  Her body moved in soft jerks.

She heaped up the plates with quick hands, and watched the men while they ate.  For a time no one spoke.  The old man went to the cellar and brought up a great mug of beer, and they filled their pipes and sat smoking and sipping the beer stolidly.  The windows were open to the air and the shades were up.  Any one passing on the long road, over the plain, might look in on them.  The woman toasted a piece of bread and moistened it with a little milk and put it, with a glass of milk, on a small tray.  The men’s eyes followed her, indifferent.  They watched her lift the tray and carry it to a door at the back of the room, and disappear.

They smoked on in silence.

The old man reached out for his glass.  He lifted it.  “Two weeks—­and three more days,” he said.  He sipped the beer slowly.

The larger of the two men nodded.  He had dark, regular features and reddish hair.  He looked heavy and tired.  He opened his lips vaguely.

“Don’t talk here!” said the younger man sharply—­and he gave a quick glance at the room—­as a weasel returns to cover, in a narrow place.

The big man smiled.  “I wa’n’t going to say anything.”

“Better not!” said the other.  He cleared his pipe with his little finger. “I don’t even think,” he added softly.

The woman had come back with the tray and the men looked up, smoking.

She set the tray down by the sink and came over to them, standing with both hands on her high hips.  She regarded them gravely and glanced at the tray.  The milk and toast were untouched.

The old man removed his pipe and looked at her plaintively.  “Can’t ye make her, Lena?” he said.  His high voice had a shrill note.