“Good-by, fair world!” Figger Bush whimpered. “Us is caught like a bug in a jug.”
“Shut up!” Pap Curtain snarled. “Whar kin we hide?”
“Git up on de roof!” Skeeter Butts suggested. “Dar’s a ladder in de attic, an’ we kin climb through a trap-door to de roof.”
Eight negroes went shuffling up the steps toward the top of the house just as the clatter of feet sounded upon the porch, and the front door was pushed open.
Four perspiring negroes boosted Hopey up the ladder, and pushed her capacious form through the narrow square opening to the roof. Then they cautiously lowered the door and gratefully seated themselves upon it.
“Safe!” Skeeter exulted. “Us is safe!”
Alas! He did not know that the door he was sitting on had a catch-lock on the inside, and that he and his friends were on that roof to stay until rescued!
III
From their observatory upon the roof, our friends beheld a mob of men surround the house and cautiously inspect all the lawn, the outhouses, and the land surrounding. Half a dozen men under the direction of Sheriff Flournoy searched the house, lighting up every room, looking in every closet, examining every corner, and peering under every bed.
“I reckon the robbers, if any, got away, fellows,” Flournoy announced as he came out on the front porch. “We cannot find anybody, and cannot see that anything has been disturbed.”