“Aha! a burglar!” he muttered to himself. “I think I’ll have to look into this thing.”
He stopped, and his first impulse was to turn and go in search of a policeman.
Ah! if he had done so how much of future misery would have been saved him.
But upon second thought he concluded not to do so, and quietly slipped within the shadow of the great porch over the front entrance.
It seemed a long time that he stood waiting there, and he regretted that he had not gone for an officer.
He did not know how long the burglars had been there, and he had feared they would escape before he could return. But finally he heard cautious steps approaching from the rear toward the corner where he was stationed, and now he caught the sound of exultant whispers, that they had been so successful as to get out undiscovered with their rich booty.
The next instant two men emerged into view, bearing their plunder in a bag between them.
With a bound the new-comer darted forward and felled one man to the ground with a blow that sounded like the descent of a sledge-hammer, and then grappled with the other.
The burglar who had been felled had been only momentarily stunned, and, almost instantly recovering himself, he had quietly picked up the bag, which had also fallen to the ground in the melee, and made off with it, leaving his companion to shift for himself as best he could.
The combatants fought bravely and well, but the assailant being lighter than the burglar, and less experienced in pugilistic practice, gradually lost ground, and finally a well-directed blow from his antagonist laid him flat at his feet, when he, also, beat a hasty retreat, having first dropped something on the ground beside his victim.