CHAPTER II.
AMONG THE PUZZLING SWAMP WATER TRAILS.
“Alligator!” shrieked Smithy; and as this was the very first saurian he had ever set eyes on, not in confinement, his excitement was hardly to be wondered at.
“Lookout, Giraffe, he’s after you!” cried Bumpus, from the other boat, close by.
There was no need of spurring the lanky scout on to any further exertions; for he had comprehended that the living log was a scaly reptile, even before he took that involuntary bath; and the instant that his head came above the surface again he made frantic haste to clamber back into the boat.
Allan had instantly stooped, and possessed himself of a repeating Marlin rifle, which he kept handy at all times now; and had that ’gator attempted anything like hostile action, the chances were that he must speedily have made the acquaintance of a soft-nosed bullet that would probably have finished his earthly career in a hurry.
No doubt the denizen of the swamp was even more badly frightened than Giraffe, for after that one whirl and splash nobody ever saw him more. But then, how was the lanky scout to know that? Imagination peopled that dark waters with a myriad of twelve-foot ’gators, all plunging toward the spot where he was struggling to drag himself back into the boat, though his soaked garments seemed to weigh very nearly a whole ton.
“Lookout, Giraffe, or you’ll upset us all!” shouted Bob White, who probably did not see any great reason for all this haste, because conditions always color such things differently.
“Help me in, somebody, can’t you?” gasped the clinging boy. “Want to see me bit in half, do you? Thad, you lend me a hand, since these other fellows won’t? Oh! what was that?” as a great splash was heard; but of course it was only Bumpus playfully striking at the water with the flat of his paddle, on pretense of “shooing” away the sportive and hungry alligator, though no doubt he had also in mind the idea of hastening Giraffe’s getting over the gunwale on wings of fear.
They managed to pull him aboard, where he stood looking all around, as though in the end a trifle disappointed not to see a few monsters showing their keen regret at being cheated out of a meal; for that would have always added flavor to the story when he came to tell it.
“Guess he’s gone down to the bottom!” suggested Giraffe; “I kicked with all my might all the time I was in the water, and that’s the only way to scare a ’gator, a coon told me. But you can laugh all you’ve a mind to, Step Hen and Bumpus, I reckon you’d a done as much as I did if it’d been you fell in. Why, I saw him open his jaws, and I declare to goodness, he had a mouth big enough to swallow a sugar barrel, and that’s the honest truth, fellows.”