“Come on,” said Andy, sure now that his bait was a good one, and that his experiment would succeed.  “I’ve got you, I 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 find out.  Gracious!  I have—­there is.”

Andy was terribly startled, almost appalled.  At just that moment a frightful yell rang out.  It proceeded from the cellar into which he had locked the bear.

A sharp crash followed.  Andy, staring spellbound, saw one of the side windows of the cellar dashed out.