"My! What's that?" asked the porcupine, preparing to pull out some more of his stickery-ickery quills.
"It sounds like the elephant," said the rabbit, as he looked around for a safe place in which to hide in case it should happen to be the bear coming after him.
"Oh, if it's the elephant, we don't have to worry. He is a friend of ours," said the porcupine.
Well, the crashing in the bushes still kept up, and then before you could tickle your pussy cat under the chin-chopper, there burst out of the middle of a prickly briar bush a great big alligator—the same one who once before had tried to catch Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, look!" cried the porcupine. "He's after us."
"Indeed, I am!" exclaimed the 'gator. "I'll have a fine meal in about a minute. I'll pull all your quills out, and eat you with strawberry sauce on; prickly porcupine."
"Oh, don't you let him do it!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Stick some of your quills in him, and make him go away, Mr. Porcupine."
"It wouldn't do any good," said the porcupine. "You see, the alligator has such a thick skin on him that even a bullet will hardly go through, so my quills won't hurt him. I guess we had better run away."
Well, they started to run away, but the 'gator, with his skillery-scalery tail, chased after them, and he could go very quickly, too, let me tell you. Right after Uncle Wiggily and the porcupine the alligator raced, and he almost caught both of them. Then the porcupine saw a hole just big enough for him to squeeze down, but not big enough for the alligator to come after.
Down into this hole jumped the prickly porcupine, and he was safe, but there was no hole for Uncle Wiggily to hide in, and the alligator was close after him.