Fortunately, the river was deep and sluggish so that progression was comparatively easy, and every hundred yards displayed something tempting to so ardent a naturalist as my uncle.
Not always pleasant, though, for the sluggish waters swarmed with huge alligators, and every now and then one plunged in from the bank with a mighty splash.
Some of the first we saw were approached innocently enough—for to unaccustomed eyes they looked like muddy logs floating down stream, and Pete laughed at me when I told him to lift his oar as we passed one so drowsy that it paid no heed.
“Raise your oar-blade,” I said, as we glided along, “or that brute may turn angry and upset us.”
I was sitting holding the tiller, steering, and Bill Cross held the other oar, while my uncle, tired out by a tramp ashore, was lying down forward, fast asleep, in the shadow cast by the sail, which kept on filling and flapping—for in the reach we had now entered the wind was hardly felt.
“I never saw a tree run at a boat, Master Nat,” said Pete, as he raised his oar-blade. But before we had half passed the sleeping reptile the boy gave it a sudden chop on the back, and then, horrified by the consequence of his act, he started up in his place, plunged overboard into the deep, muddy water on the other side, and disappeared.
For a moment or two I thought that we were all going to follow, for the reptile struck the boat a tremendous blow with its tail as it plunged down, raising the river in waves and eddies, and making our craft dance so that the water nearly came over the side, and we all clung to the nearest object to our hands.
“What’s that?” cried my uncle.
“Alligator,” I said, in a startled tone.
“Where’s the boy?”