"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.