guess."

Andy started on a run, paying out the rope. Just as Big Bob was about to
pounce upon the toothsome spoil, Andy gave it a jerk.

He gauged his rate of progress on a close estimate. Along the trail sped
bruin. Andy put across the fields.

He heard a bell ring out. Glancing back at the farmhouse, he saw a human
arm reaching through an open window. It pulled at a rope leading to a
big alarm bell hanging from the eaves. Looking beyond the farmhouse he
also saw three or four men in a distant field, summoned by the bell, now
rushing in its direction.

"I'll get Big Bob beyond the danger line, anyhow," decided Andy. "No,
you don't!"

The fugitive had pounced fairly on the dragging beef. Andy gave it a
whirling jerk. Bruin uttered a baffled growl.

"Come on," laughed Andy. "This is jolly fun--if it doesn't end in a
tragedy."

Andy ran under the bottom rail of a fence. He made time and distance,
for the bear did not squeeze through so readily. Andy put through a
brushy reach beyond. Big Bob began to lag. He limped and panted.

"If I can only tucker him out," thought Andy.

He kept up the race for fully half-an-hour. As he reached the edge of a
boggy stretch, Andy saw, directly beyond, the top of a house poking up
among a grove of fir trees.

Andy's eyes were everywhere as he neared the building. Its lower part
was so tightly shuttered and closed up that he decided at once it was an
empty house.

Getting nearer, however, he discovered that the door at the bottom of
the stone cellar steps was open. Andy glanced back of him. Big Bob, with
lolling tongue, was lumbering steadily on his track, perhaps twenty feet
to the rear.

"I'll try it," determined Andy.

He ran down the steps, halted in the dark cellar, pulled in the meat and
flung it ahead of him. Then stepping to one side he prepared to act
promptly when the right moment arrived.

Big Bob came to the steps, cleared them in a spring and ran past Andy.
The latter dodged outside in a flash. He banged the door shut, shot its
bolt, sank to the steps and swept his hand over his dripping brow.

"Whew!" panted Andy. "But I've made it."

Andy felt that he had done a pretty clever thing. He had gotten the
fugitive safely caged behind a stout locked door. The cellar had several
windows, but they were high up, and too small for Big Bob to ever
squeeze through.

"I don't believe there is anybody at home," said Andy, getting up to
investigate. "I'm going to fin