Teddy's heart was thumping pretty hard as he thrust his chin over the edge of the sign and whispered, "You fellows down there?" "Yes," answered the boys. "Well, what you so scared at?" he asked, tauntingly, as a way of keeping up his own courage. "Look out, now, and I'll have this sign down there before you know it." He rose up and started to hurry along the cornice, but stumbled over something and went down with a great thump. Fortunately he fell on the ledge, and the sign kept him from rolling into the street. "What's the matter, Ted?" asked the others, excitedly. "Nothing. Don't know. Fell over something." He felt about in the darkness, and added: "Iron thing to put a big flag in. Forgot it was here." He crawled on to the other end, and readily pulled up the other iron that held the sign in place. Then he crept back to the middle, looking out for the flag-staff bracket this time, and tied one end of his clothes-line around the sign. He took a half turn with the line around the flag-holder, which he stood astride, lifted up on the sign to release it from the supports on which it rested, and began to lower it slowly. "Get ready, there!" he whispered to the other boys. The sign was heavier than he had expected, and the rope hurt his hands. But he shut his teeth together and hung on, and slowly paid out the line. Just then there came the sound of a heavy step up the street. Teddy tried to let the rope go a little faster, but it suddenly shot through his hands. The sign struck the stone sidewalk broadside with a report like a gun, and the end of the rope, which was entangled with his feet, jerked him off the ledge, and he shot down after the sign. But the flag bracket which had tripped him up before saved him this time. Its upturned end caught under the back of his jacket, and stopped him with a jerk, his shoulder-blades against the front of the ledge, and his legs dangling in the air above the doorway. Between the crash of the falling sign and the heavy footsteps, which sounded precisely like the watchman's, the other boys had been too frightened to think, and had scampered down the street faster than they had ever run before.