“Oh, you stupid old alligator!” the jackal shouted; “if you had stayed still you might have caught me. Ring-a-ting, ring-a-ting! Thank you for shaking yourself and letting me know you were there!” Then away he ran as fast as his legs would carry him.
The alligator gnashed his teeth with rage. “Never mind! I will catch this little jackal yet,” he declared, and he hid in the tall grass beside the path that led to the fig tree.
He waited there for several days, but he saw nothing of his intended victim. The jackal was afraid to come to the fig tree any more. He stayed in the jungle and fed on such roots and berries as he could find there, but found so little that he grew thin and miserable.
One morning the alligator made his way to the jackal’s house while the jackal was away. He squeezed in through the narrow doorway and hid under the heap of dead leaves that was the jackal’s bed.
Toward evening the little jackal came running home. He was very hungry, for he had found scarcely anything to eat all day, and he was very tired too. Just as he was about to go in and lie down on his bed he noticed that the sides of the doorway were scraped and broken as if some big animal had forced its way through.
The Alligator Goes to the Jackal’s House