"Is he—is he de—dead?" gasped Shadow, who was still a few feet in the rear of the others.
"I think he is," responded Dave. "Load up again as quickly as you can and we'll watch him," and then he proceeded to take care of his own firearm.
But watching was unnecessary, for the huge beast had breathed his last. It was a proud crowd of boys that surrounded the game.
"Say, that's some shooting!" declared Phil, his eyes glistening. "Won't the others be surprised when they hear of it?"
"He certainly is a big one!" said Ben. "I don't believe they grow them much bigger than that anywhere around here." And this assertion proved true, as the boys learned when, later on, Tad Rason saw the game at the bungalows.
"Well, we've got our kitchen utensils and most of the tableware back, anyway," declared Roger, after an inspection of the hollow where they had first discovered the bear at work. "Hello, here's the stuff Mr. Bruin was after!" he added, holding up a chunk of meat which still lay in a pan in the hollow. This meat had been taken from the Wadsworth ice-box; but why it had been placed in the hollow was a mystery.
"But it's a good thing the burglars put it there," declared Luke. "That is what attracted the bear and made him dig."
A careful search of the hollow revealed nearly everything that had been taken from the two bungalows except Laura's rings and Mrs. Basswood's silverware.
"I guess they thought those things too valuable to leave here," was Dave's comment. "I am convinced of one thing," he added.
"What is that?" questioned Ben.