“Thank you, kind Alligator, thank you, thank you! Indeed it is very kind of you to show me just where you are.”
The old alligator was furious at being deceived by the little jackal once more. “Next time I will be very cunning,” he said. So, for a long time he waited and waited for the jackal, to come to the riverside, but the jackal never returned.
“I shall be caught and eaten by that wicked old alligator some day if I am not careful. I must content myself to do without crabs.” He went no more to the river, but stayed in the jungle and ate wild figs and roots which he dug up with his paws.
When the alligator found this out he was angry again, and he determined to try to catch the jackal on land. So he crawled over the ground to a place where the largest of the wild fig trees grew. He made a great heap of the fallen figs and hid himself under it, and there he waited for the jackal. No sooner did the cunning little animal spy the great pile of figs than he thought, “Oh, ho, that looks much like my friend the alligator. I’ll see.” So he called out,
“The little wild figs I like best always tumble down from the tree, and roll here and there as the wind drives them. That great heap of figs is quite still. They can not be good figs. I will not eat one of them.”
The old alligator thought, “Oh, ho! How suspicious this jackal is. I will make the figs roll about a little, then he will come and eat them.”
So the great beast shook himself and all the little figs went roll, roll, roll, this way and that, farther than the most blustering wind could have driven them. The jackal knew who was under the heap. Away he scampered, calling back, “Thank you, Mr. Alligator, for letting me know you are there! I should scarcely have guessed it.” The alligator hearing this was so angry that he ran after the jackal, but the jackal ran away too quickly to be caught.
The old alligator was now in a rage. “I will not let him make fun of me another time and then run away out of my reach. I will show him I can be more cunning than he thinks,” he declared.
Early the next morning he crawled as fast as he could till he came to the little jackal’s den. The jackal was away, and so he crept in and hid himself to wait until the little animal should return. By and by the jackal came home. He looked all about the place, for the ground around his house was torn up as though some very heavy animal had been crawling there.
“Dear me,” he said. Then he saw that the earth on each side of the door of his den had been knocked down as if something very big had tried to squeeze through it.