"I am glad to see you. I owe you something. After you have had your supper I'm going to beat you," announced the fat boy.
"He is pretty well subdued as it is, Chunky," answered Tad soberly. "Don't humiliate him. Can't you see that the fellow is suffering? Never kick a dog after he is down and helpless."
"He isn't a dog. The dogs wouldn't own him as a member of their tribe."
In the meantime, Lilly had ordered the prisoner to get down, after which the guide tied the man to a tree. The boys pressed about Tad to hear the story of the capture. Butler told them briefly what had taken place, without making any special point of his own part in the affair. But if Tad had been modest about it, Lilly was not. He told them plainly that Tad Butler was the cleverest little roper and trailer who ever had come into the Louisiana canebrake, and that if it hadn't been for Tad there might have been all entirely different story to tell.
"What do you propose to do with the man, now that you have him?" asked the Professor after the story had been fully told.
"Keep him till we go back to Jackson. I'll have him locked up, and you had better believe the judge will give him all that's coming to him. Pete won't be hitting the canebrake trail right smart again, I reckon."
Supper was given to the prisoner, then later he was made comfortable for the night. Lilly announced that they would take the trail for bear again in the morning. He said he felt it in his bones that they were going to have the sport for which they had come into the canebrake. He felt that there were bear waiting for them out there. They had enough reserve dogs to take the trail and they might be sure that Alligator Pete would not be on hand to bother the trail.
At a late hour they turned in, Tad Butler not as well satisfied over his achievement as most lads would have been.
It was late in the night when Tad crawled from his tent and crept cautiously towards the spot where Alligator Pete lay sleeping. He reached the prisoner without awakening him, so cautious had been his movements. The first Pete knew of his presence was when Tad shook him lightly by the shoulder.
The "Alligator" started up, but was too good a woodsman to utter a sound.