“What comes next, then?”
“I ’spect some folks here at eight o’clock. They’ll be like to take the gate for it, but might try the front-door.”
“Yes. What then?”
“You and me are to see them, and fix their photographs in our heads. You take your stand here, where you’ve got a set at the front door. You’re posted in thieves and sich, and don’t let any go in without your nailing them. I’ll take my squint at the gate. I think it’s like my fellers will take that route.”
Will’s way of taking the gate was to coil himself in a heap against the opposite fence, and to be apparently lost in slumber.
He slept, however, with both eyes wide open.
He had not been there five minutes before a man came quietly up the alley, looking suspiciously around. He saw Will, but paid no attention to him. In an instant he had opened the gate and disappeared in the yard.
Ten minutes passed of Will’s silent watch, when two men came along in company.
He expected they would pass by, but they boldly opened the gate and passed in, closing it behind them.
A half-hour of Will’s silent watch had passed, and he was about to give it up, under the impression that all his birds were caged, when a fourth man came along.