“Yaas, Maussuh, uh yeddy’um, but dis duh Dry Drought, enty?”
“Yes, a very severe drought.”
“Berry well, suh. Enty you know, Maussuh, suh Dry Drought duh him own maussuh, en’ him ent ’f’aid alligettuh? En’, Maussuh, Dry Drought him haa’d-head’ ez de berry Satan! Nobody ent fuh mek’um fuh do nutt’n’! All dem todduh kinduh wedduh dem berry ’f’aid alligettuh. W’en alligettuh belluh fuh rain, dem big Bloodynoun frog dem jine’um, ‘come’yuh rain, come’yuh’ rain, come’yuh rain!’ Den dem po’ leely frog een de tree, dem hab shishuh mo’nful woice, dem biggin fuh cry. Bimeby, rain come. But Dry Drought, him ent stan’ so. W’en Dry Drought come, bullfrog know suh alligettuh cyan’ mek’um fuh wedduh, en’ you yeddy’um holluh ‘’e yent fuh rain, ’e yent fuh rain, ’e yent fuh rain!’ Alligettuh bex. ’E holluh ’gen. Dry Drought suck ’e teet’ at’um. ’Scuse me fuh cuss, Maussuh, but Dry Drought him ent care uh dam ’bout alligettuh, uh dunkyuh ef’ ’e holluh ’tell ’e belly bus’!”
So, as the unterrified “Dry Drought” burned about him, Sabey prepared to start his campaign. The waters, long drying up, were now low enough. Many alligators had been forced to move, and the smaller ones were frequently encountered in the road—sometimes even on the high pineland plateaus—as they traveled toward the river or adventured in search of deeper canals or water holes. They always showed fight, too, swelling up like pouter pigeons, standing high off the ground, and hissing like geese, while they watched for a chance to lash out with dangerous tail. But, with the conservatism of age and wealth, the big old fellows seldom moved from their favorite pools on which opened their subterranean holes or burrows, excavated with their forefeet, like those of other burrowing creatures. Here in the deep pools were fish at hand, and nearby were the pig paths along which unwary shoats, going to the water, or nosing about in the soft earth for succulent roots, would often come in reach of the sweeping tail, and add to the variety of the big ’gator’s fare. In these deep underground holes, the ugly creatures hibernated from autumn to spring, until, with the earliest warm sunshine, first the nose and eyes would appear cautiously above the water which covered the entrance to the hole, and, growing bolder day by day, as the weather became warmer, next the head, and, at last the entire body would be exposed, lying on the muddy bank, or on a tussock among the rushes. Here, perhaps, he would be descried by some adventurous boy, who, sighting carefully despite his palpitating heart, would shatter the ’gator’s skull with a rifle bullet or reach his heart by a well-aimed charge of buckshot behind the shoulder; but, barring the boy, the days of the big ’gators were long in the land, for they became more wary with advancing years and seldom fell to the negroes’ firearms.
While the drought was yet young, the heaviest alligator in the community had been located by Sabey at the “Half Moon” dam, and now the deep pool into which his hole opened contained all the water that was left in the great savanna. The yawning mouth of the big ’gator hole, ordinarily covered with water, now disclosed a parched throat wide enough to have taken in a barrel. From day to day during the pendency of the drought, Sabey had sneaked up to the pool hoping to surprise the ’gator out of his hole and by a lucky shot get him out of the way and clear the path to the terrapins, but he had not been fortunate enough to see him, although he knew he was there by the tracks and the impress of his great body in the baked mud that lay between the pool and the entrance to his hole. Even had Sabey found him, he could have slain him only with a close shot in the unprotected region just under the arm, for the negro seldom shoots anything larger than number two shot, which would have glanced harmlessly off the tough scales with which the ’gator was almost completely armored.
Forced to oust the householder, in order to get at his unbidden guests, the terrapin hunter was now turned ’gator hunter. Although almost invariably hunting alone, pulling the smaller ’gators out of their holes with an iron hook and killing them with his axe, the master of the Half Moon pool was too ugly a customer to be so easily disposed of, and, after pondering long, Sabey determined to organize a ’gator hunt for the following day and call to his aid some of the plantation negroes.
On Saturday morning a dozen negroes, men and boys, met Sabey at the Half Moon. They were making holiday and laughed and chaffed in high spirits. A few carried jampots, intending to churn the waters for their favorite mudfish. Others, directed by Sabey, had brought strong plow lines which they had borrowed without leave from “de buckruh’,” and three or four were provided with axes. Besides his musket, Sabey carried on his shoulder a stout seven-foot hickory staff, at one end of which the village blacksmith had attached an iron ring, while at the other he had riveted a strong iron shaft shaped somewhat like a medieval pike—a spear-like point with which to prod and stir up his ’gatorship, and a sharp, though heavy, hook with which to drag him out of his retreat. Although Sabey was the master craftsman of them all in this form of adventure, the two or three old darkeys in the bunch could not refrain from giving advice. “Git een de hole, Sabey, git een de hole,” said old Cato Giles, the plantation foreman. “Tek de plow line en’ tie’um to ’e foot, den we mans kin drag’um out.”
“Duh me gwine een de hole, enty? Hukkuh uh gwine git at da’ alligettuh’ foot bedout git at ’e head fus’? Me fuh pit my head een ’e mout’ w’ile uh duh tie ’e foot, enty? No, suh!”
Cutting a long, supple pole from a nearby thicket, Sabey ran it down the hole in order to determine its underground course and locate its occupant. He knelt at the opening and ran his sapling down carefully, listening for the scraping of the far end against the rough scales of the alligator. The hole, which slanted downward at an angle of 45 degrees, proved to be almost straight, and, when twelve feet of the pole had been shoved in, Sabey heard the grating sound he had been listening for, and knew what work was before him. Withdrawing the pole, he first made fast a double plow line to the ring end of his staff, while he tied another line around one of his ankles and prepared to go down into the hole. “Tek off yo’ shu’t, man,” advised old Cato. “Ef da’ ’gatuh bite you ’e gwine spile’um, en’ no use fuh t’row’way uh shu’t.”
“Yaas, man,” another said, “tek’um off. You kin slip een da’ hole bettuh bedout’um.”