Below us the Harmony Hustler was chasing his fingers up and down the keyboard. We were thankful for the music for it enabled us to go quickly about the room without the danger of attracting attention to our movements.
Our jailer, seemingly charmed by the piano’s music, was contentedly rocking back and forth in a big chair in the middle of the room. I sort of laughed to myself as I squinted at him through the stovepipe hole. We were putting it over on him! I could imagine his later bellowing rage at the discovery of our clever flight.
Bang!
I almost jumped out of my skin at the crashing sound.
“Hey!” our jailer roared from below, leaping to his feet. “What in Sam Hill be you kids doin’ up thar?”
In preparing to climb over the sill, Scoop clumsily had let the window fall. Frantic, he was now trying to raise it, so that we could make our escape down the rope before our jailer got into the room. But the window had stuck tightly in its sharp fall. He couldn’t budge it.
I saw in a flash that we were trapped. Our predicament filled me with shivers. We would suffer double, Scoop and I, for our luckier companions’ [[164]]escape. In his rage, our jailer might even turn his shotgun on us.
I didn’t want to be shot. It was an awful thought. And in a panic I darted my horrified eyes around the room for a possible barricade. The bed! My eyes came to it and stopped. I had hid under beds more than once in my lifetime! And here was an especially good bed to hide under, for its white fringed spread hung low on the sides.
The jailer turned the key in the door’s lock. But in the time that the door was being thrown open, I vanished, pantless, Scoop after me, under the bed. [[165]]