onscious that there were rapidly approaching footsteps
behind him.

Great heavens! had Lester Armstrong succeeded in making his escape? No,
it could not be. Even if so, he was too weak to run in that rapid
fashion. Involuntarily he paused and glanced backward over his shoulder.
The next instant a wild, panting cry of mortal terror broke from his
lips.

In that backward glance he had beheld a huge black bear, making rapidly
toward the spot where he stood, fairly paralyzed with horror.

It dawned upon him suddenly that only a few days before he had read of
the escape of one of the most ferocious black bears of the zoological
gardens, and, though two days had elapsed and men were scouring all
parts of the adjacent places, no trace of the animal had been found, and
great fears were expressed of the grave damage the bear might do before
he was recaptured.

This was undoubtedly the animal that had escaped which was making toward
him with great leaps and savage growls, as though it had already marked
him for its prey.

His teeth chattered like castanets; his eyes fairly bulged from their
sockets; the breath came in hot gasps from his white lips; his brain
reeled, as he took in, in that rapid glance of horror, his awful doom.

Nearer and nearer sounded the hoarse, awful growls; nearer and nearer
moved the huge black mass over the white, crunching snow.

The moon was slowly rising over the horizon, rendering all objects
clearly distinct to his frightened gaze.

He was passing through a narrow belt of woodland, and like an
inspiration it occurred to him that his only hope of escape lay in
climbing one of the trees and thus outwitting the bear.

He saw with sinking heart that they were scarcely more than saplings,
and whether or not they would bear his weight without snapping in twain
he dared not even pause to consider.

With a groan of mortal terror he sprang for the nearest tree. Fright
seemed to lend him wonderful strength and agility; he succeeded in
reaching the lowest limb as the animal, with glittering eyes and widely
distended jaws, reached the tree.

Up, up, crept Halloran, his teeth chattering, his strength almost
leaving him as the animal's roar of baffled rage fell upon his ear.

To and fro bent the sapling under his weight, threatening to snap
asunder each moment and cast him into the jaws of the enraged beast.

The hours that followed were of such keen, mortal terror that he vaguely
wondered that he