Initially, Ulrich von Gradwitz, the owner of the forested lands, and Georg Znaeym, the neighbor who poaches on that land, each hope that their men will be the first to find them (both trapped under a fallen tree) because that will give him the upper hand and allow him to kill the other and make it look like an accident. Each man sneers and jeers at the other, taunting each other by describing what each will do once the other man is dead.

However, once they make peace with each other, both von Gradwitz and Znaeym hope that their men will be the first to discover them so that "he might be the first to show honorable attention to the enemy that had become a friend." After von Gradwitz offers first his wine flask and then a figurative olive branch to his long-time enemy, the relationship between the two men changes, and they begin to imagine how lovely it will be to be at peace with one another. And then the wolves come, the "interlopers" of the title, dashing both men's hopes.