“Never mind, we’ll bring back some game that will make their eyes bulge,” declared Tubby valiantly. “Come on, Fred.”
“Wait till I shove the landing plank ashore,” said Fred, catching hold of a plank that was used for that purpose. The launch lay quite close to the shore and the plank, which was ten feet long, was of sufficient length to form a bridge.
“Never mind the plank,” quoth Tubby, “I’ll just step on this old log here and——”
“Look out, boy!” came a sharp cry from Mr. Raynor.
But it was too late. Tubby had already stepped over the side of the launch. As his foot touched the log a surprising thing happened. What had seemed a balk of old rotten timber gave a leap that threw Tubby into the water, and at the same instant a vast pair of jaws, armed with double rows of gleaming teeth, flashed wide open. The alligator—for that was what Tubby’s “log” was—gave a menacing, hissing sound and a flourish of its formidable tail.
The next instant a rifle cracked sharply. The creature gave a roar as a bullet crashed down its open throat. Rob, seeing Tubby’s peril, had snatched Fred’s rifle from him and pumped a bullet into the monster reptile where it would do the most good. He pumped the repeating mechanism and two more bullets drove into the ’gator before it sank, crimsoning the muddy water. They saw no more of it and Mr. Mainwaring declared that Rob must have killed it.
Tubby, up to his waist in water, gasped as he beheld his narrow escape and Rob’s prompt action.
“Gee whiz! This is a funny country,” he mumbled, after he had been lectured for his carelessness. “Cocoanuts explode and old rotten logs turn into alligators.”
On his promise to be careful and keep well within call, Tubby was allowed to go on shore with Fred and you may be sure he used the landing plank this time. The two boys struck off straight into the jungle and then kept a course that lay parallel to the river bank. All at once Tubby gave a violent exclamation and almost fell over backward. A lizard, but a lizard almost as big as himself, had run through the jungle right in front of him.
“A Panama water-lizard,” declared Fred, who had put in more time studying the country from books than had Tubby. “It’s harmless.”