"and by staying you're only putting your life in almost certain
jeopardy."

But Prescott shook his head and went on studying the turn of rope
around the tree trunk.

"You foolhardy fellow, I wish I had authority to order you away
from here," exclaimed the physician irascible.

"I know you think I'm foolhardy, sir," Dick answered respectfully,
"but, from the way the rope is fraying, this beast is going to
be free presently. I feel that I simply have to find a way to
prevent his doing mischief. We boys can take to trees, but how
about the girls? How about Mrs. Bentley?"

"They can get inside of the wooden houses at need," urged Dr.
Bentley. "It is hardly likely that even a crazy bull would attack
a wooden house."

"He might charge through our camp, though, and frankly, doctor,
we can't afford to lose that camp," Prescott argued.

"You other boys get back!" commanded Dr. Bentley, but Dick's chums
came closer.

"Hoo-hoo! hoo-hoo!" sounded a masculine voice from the direction
of Dick & Co.'s camp.

"Hoo-hoo!" Dick answered, in his loudest tone. "Who are you?"

"Hibbert," came the reply. "I understand you are bull chasing!"

"Yes."

"Want any help?"

"Yes; if you're an expert in handling wild bulls," Dick shouted
back, between his hands.

"I guess that will hold him, for a little while," chuckled Dave.
"The idea of Hibbert handling wild bulls with those dainty little
white hands of his!"

Soon the sound of running steps was heard. Then on the scene
came Hibbert, carrying a second rope that he had found.

"A queer hitch-up you've got there," murmured the dapper little
man, as he halted near the group.

"Yes; and the bull is going to get away pretty soon, according
to all predictions," replied Tom Reade. "Though, perhaps, Mr.
Hibbert, you may have an idea that hasn't occurred to our addled
brains."

"That's hardly likely," murmured the young man, as he began to
tie a running noose in one end of the rope with an air of
preoccupation. "I don't know very much about cattle."

"I suppose not," Tom nodded.

"The very little that I know about the beasts," Hibbert went on
quietly, "was what I picked up during my college vacations, when
my good old Dad sent me west to rough it on a ranch. I'm not
a cowboy at all, you know. All I know about them I discovered
merely by sitting in saddle and watching the cowboys."

Now Hibbert slipped around to the rear of the bull, which, for
the moment, was behav