My dreams had even taken practical shape.  As I was dressing myself that morning I had puzzled my brain to find a pretext for taking the first step, which would be to remain a few days at the inn.

The pretext for doing this had appeared to me.  For a moment I had snatched at it and shown my joy, and then it had utterly disappeared—­the vision, the fancy, the anticipations, the plans, the vine-covered home in the air, all were destroyed as completely as if it had been the tire of my bicycle scattered about in little bits upon the ground.

“Come along, old Orso!” I exclaimed, endeavoring to mend my pace, and giving the bear a good pull upon his chain.  But the ugly creature did not walk any faster; he simply looked at me with an air as if he would say that if I kept long upon the road I would learn to take it easy, and maintained the deliberate slouch of his demeanor.

Presently I stopped, and Orso was very willing to imitate me in that action.  I found, to my surprise, that I was not walking upon a macadamized road:  such was the highway which passed the inn and led, I had been told, to the Cheltenham.  I was now upon a road of gravel and clay, smooth enough and wide enough, but of a different character from that on which I had started that morning.  I looked about me.  Across a field to my left I saw a line of trees which seemed to indicate a road.  I had a dim recollection of having passed a road which seemed to turn to the left, but I had been thinking very earnestly, and had paid little attention to it.  Probably that road was the main road and this the one which turned off.

I determined to investigate.  It would not do to wander out of my way with my present encumbrance.  It was now somewhat after noon; the country people were eating their dinners or engaged about their barns; there was nobody upon the road.  At some distance ahead of me was a small house standing well back behind a little group of trees, and I decided to go there and make inquiries.  And as it would not do at all to throw a rural establishment into a state of wild confusion by leading a bear up to its door, I conducted Orso to the side of the road and chained him to a fence-post.  He was perfectly satisfied and lay down, his nose upon his fore-paws.

[Illustration:  “To my left I saw A line of trees”]

I found three women in the little house.  They were in a side kitchen eating their dinner, and I wondered what the bear would have done if he had smelled that dinner.  They told me that I was not on the main road, and would have to go back more than half a mile in order to regain it.

When I was out on the road again I said to myself that if I could possibly make Orso step along at a little more lively pace I might get to the hotel in time for a very late luncheon, and I was beginning to think that I had not been wise in declining portable refreshment, when I heard a noise ahead of me.  At a considerable distance along the road, and not far from where I had left the bear, I saw a horse attached to a vehicle approaching me at a furious speed.  He was running away!  The truth flashed upon me—­he had been frightened by Orso!