“Then you may hold my whistle as well as your own,” said Bawly, “for I might lose it under water.” Then into the pond Bawly hopped, and was soon swimming about like a fish.
But something is going to happen, just as I expected it would, and I’ll tell you all about it, as I promised.
All of a sudden, as Bawly was swimming about, that bad old skillery, scalery alligator, who had escaped from a circus, reared his ugly head up from the pond, where he had been sleeping, and grabbed poor Bawly in his claws.
“Oh, let me go!” cried the boy frog. “Please let me go!”
“No, I’ll not!” answered the alligator savagely. “I had you and your brother once before, and you got away, but you shan’t get loose this time. I’m going to take you to my deep, dark, dismal den, and then we’ll have supper together.”
Well, Bawly begged and pleaded, but it was of no use. That alligator simply would not let him go, but held him tightly in his claws, and made ugly faces at him, just like the masks on Hallowe’en night.
All this while Sammie Littletail sat on the bank of the pond, too frightened, at the sight of the alligator, to hop away. He was afraid the savage creature might, at any moment, spring out and grab him also, and the rabbit boy just sat there, not knowing what to do.
“I wish I could save Bawly,” thought Sammie, “but how can I? I can’t fight a big alligator, and if I throw stones at him it will only make him more angry. Oh, if only there was a fireman or a policeman in the woods, I’d tell him, and he’d hit the alligator, and make him go away. But there isn’t a policeman or a fireman here!”