In one scurrying backward jump, he was off the veranda and on the lawn, tail vibrating, eyes dancing; satchel held tantalizingly towards its would-be possessor.
The light sound of his body touching ground reached the man.

Reasoning that the sweep of his own arm had somehow knocked the bag off the porch, he ventured off the edge of the veranda and flashed a swathed ray of his pocket light along the ground in search of it.
The flashlight's lens was cleverly muffled; in a way to give forth but a single subdued finger of illumination.

That one brief glimmer was enough to show the thief a right impossible sight.

The glow struck answering lights from the polished sides of the brown bag.

The bag was hanging in air, some six inches above the grass and perhaps five feet away from him.