s and once in the heart. Had he
been a real bear, he'd be as dead as a salt mackerel now."

"Provided he had consented to stand still," answered Dave. "Shooting at
a stationary object is one thing, and at a moving, living creature quite
another."

"I have it!" cried Phil. "Let us get a rope and throw it over one of the
tree limbs. Then we can tie the door to it and swing it to and fro.
We'll try to hit the bear while he's swinging."

"That's the talk!" returned Dave, enthusiastically. "I'll get the rope!"
And he ran off to the barn for it. Little did he dream of what trouble
that swinging target was to make for himself and his chums.

Many of my old readers already know Dave Porter, but for the benefit of
others a brief outline of his past history will not be out of place.
When he was a wee boy he had been found one day wandering along the
railroad tracks outside of the village of Crumville. Nobody knew who he
was or where he came from, and consequently he was put in the local
poorhouse, there to remain until he was nine years old. Then a
broken-down college professor named Caspar Potts, who was doing farming
for his health, took the lad to live with him.

Caspar Potts gave Dave the rudiments of a good education. But he could
not make his farm pay, and soon got into the grasp of Aaron Poole, a
miserly money-lender, who threatened to sell him out.

Things looked exceedingly black for the old man and the boy when
something very unexpected happened, as has been related in detail in the
first volume of this series, called "Dave Porter at Oak Hall." In
Crumville lived a rich manufacturer named Oliver Wadsworth, who had a
beautiful daughter named Jessie, some years younger than Dave. Through
an accident to the gasoline tank of an automobile, Jessie's clothing
took fire, and she might have been burned to death had not Dave rushed
in and extinguished the flames.

Mr. Wadsworth was profuse in his thanks, and so was his wife, and both
made inquiries concerning Dave and Caspar Potts. It was found that the
latter was one of the manufacturer's former college professors, and Mr.
Wadsworth insisted that Professor Potts give up farming and come and
live with him, and bring Dave along. Then he sent Dave to boarding
school, where the lad soon proved his worth, and made close chums of
Roger Morr, the son of a United States senator; Phil Lawrence, the
offspring of a wealthy shipowner, and a number of others.

The cloud concerning