What happens when the children trespass on the Radley property in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

In Chapter 6 of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the most important events that occurs during the children's escapade of trespassing on the Radleys' property is that they are heard and pursued by Mr. Nathan Radley.

When they first make it inside of the grounds, they try peering through a window on the side of the house with a broken shutter. Jem and Scout give Dill a boost up to the window sill so he can take a peek inside, but all he can report seeing are curtains and a "little teeny light way off somewhere." Dill then gets the notion to try one of the back windows that they must mount the back porch to see into, and, unfortunately, the steps of the back porch squeak. Jem makes it all the way onto the porch when Scout sees a "shadow of a man with a hat on," moving toward Jem across the porch. The shadow retreats around the side of the house, and the three children make a run for it through the garden to the back of the Radley lot where they came in. Scout narrates that "halfway through the collards [she] tripped; as [she] tripped the roar of a shotgun shattered the neighborhood."

They make it to the fence separating the Radley lot from the schoolyard, and Scout and Dill make it safely under the fence. However, Jem gets his pants caught on the fence and must kick them off to escape the fence. The children then make it safely back into the Finches' back yard, but Jem has no pants. When they walk into the front yard, they see that all of their neighbors are gathered in front of the Radleys' gate, and Jem argues it will look suspicious if they don't join the neighbors to see what the commotion is all about. When Jem is discovered pantless by Miss Stephanie Crawford, the children must think of an excuse. They believe they have gotten away with their excuse of playing strip poker.

Later that night, Jem decides he must go back to try and retrieve his pants to keep Atticus from discovering the truth of what they had been doing. Later, in Chapter 7, we learn that Jem had discovered his pants laying neatly folded on the fence, and the rips had been mended. The tidy condition of Jem's pants gives us our first clue into the true benevolent nature of their neighbor, Arthur Radley, whom the children call Boo Radley.