“Let’s go down and scout around.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to wait for Vickers to show up?”
“If they’re still inside the house they’d hear the cars coming.” Watchman backed off the hilltop. “We’ll go around and come in through the trees.”
When they got near the house he played the scope around and made out patterns of footprints inside the grove; it was no good sorting out tracks on the open earth of the yard because the ground had been scuffed up by years of use. Watchman crept to the back of the house and used his ears. Heard nothing but the thrumming of the well pump; signaled Stevens forward and went around the side of the house, moving without sound, forward along the wall to the lighted front window.
When he looked inside he turned stiff in his tracks.