Mason gave a leap, caught hold of Ned's wrists, and, with the agility of a circus performer, swung himself up into the window.
All was as silent as the grave. The only sign of life I could see in the peaceful street were two cats enjoying a nocturnal gambol on a nearby piazza roof. I shivered for fear they might start yowling and awaken somebody to spoil our plans.
Just at that instant one of the cats upset a flower pot which stood at a window opening on the porch roof. To my horror that pot went rolling down the roof with a tremendous clatter, hung suspended for a second on the eaves, then fell to the stone steps with a crash that woke the echoes.
At once the whole town awoke. In every direction I could hear windows being thrown open, children crying, and sleepy voices asking what the trouble was.
At a window directly over the store where my two friends were a night-capped head appeared and a frightened woman screamed, "Help! Burglars!" at the top of her lungs.
That completed the havoc which the playful cats and the flower pot had begun. From every house half-dressed men armed with rifles, shotguns, and all sorts of weapons poured into the street.
All this racket had started too suddenly for me to give Ned and George any warning. I could only crouch farther back in the shadow of my doorway and trust to Providence that the villagers would overlook me in their excitement.
"There goes the burglar now!" some one shouted, and just then I saw my husband dash past my hiding place so close that I could have touched him. He was headed for the open country beyond the railroad tracks and was running faster than I had ever supposed a man of his weight could.
"Stop, or I'll shoot!" yelled an old white-whiskered farmer, who stood, rifle in hand, not a dozen yards away.
But Ned, if he heard the command, made no move to obey. Instead, he only ran all the faster, hunching his head down between his shoulders and zigzagging back and forth across the road as if to make his bulky form a less favorable target.