"What for; do you want to bite him yourself?" asked the skillery-scalery alligator creature, grinning from ear to ear.
"No, I don't," answered the dreadful looking animal. "But you get away from here or I'll eat you!" And, my! you should have heard that muddy creature growl. No, perhaps it's just as well you didn't hear him, or you might have bad dreams. Anyhow, that new, queer animal growled so that even the alligator was frightened, and Uncle Wiggily said to himself:
"Oh, worse and worse! If the alligator doesn't get me this terrible creature will!"
Then the terrible creature growled some more and showed his teeth and the alligator crawled out of the hole and scurried away, taking his scaly tail with him.
"Ha! Ha! That's the time I fooled you!" cried the terrible looking animal, and then he burst out laughing and took the paper and leaf from his ears, shook out the burrs from his tail, and whom do you s'pose it was? Why none other than Peetie Bow Wow, the nice puppy dog.
"Oh, you saved my life!" cried Uncle Wiggily, thankfully.
"Yes, he certainly did," said the grasshopper, perching himself on the edge of the hole. "I met Peetie in the woods and told him about you, and he rolled in the mud and water and stuck himself all up with burrs, so as to make himself look as terrible as possible and scare the alligator. It was a good trick; wasn't it?"
"It was, indeed!" cried the rabbit, as the grasshopper and the puppy dog helped him out of the hole; "even if I didn't find my fortune."
So the alligator didn't get the rabbit, and Uncle Wiggily had another adventure next day. I'll tell you what it was very soon for the following story will be about Uncle Wiggily and Jackie Bow-Wow--that is, if the picture on the wall doesn't turn upside down and scare the parlor lamp so that it goes out on the porch to sit on the door mat.