"Oh, Bunny, don't!" begged Sue. "There's such a lot of 'em!"
Bunny began to think this himself. As he and his sister watched, they saw more alligators crawling up out of the water to the warm sunny bank of the little island.
"There's hundreds of 'em!" cried Sue.
More and more alligators kept coming out of the water. Some were large—fully fifteen feet long perhaps, with big, sharp claws, a long, rough tail, and such big mouths! Others of the alligators were small, but there were no babies among them.
The sun shone warm on the mud and sand shores of the little island and that is why the alligators climbed out there. Alligators spend about half their time under water, getting things to eat, but when the sun shines hot they like to bask in it. That is what the scaly creatures were now doing.
"Let's don't hurt alligators," begged Sue of her brother. "Let's go back to our own island."
Bunny looked at the big, glistening, black creatures, as they crawled over one another, sometimes giving flips with their tails and opening their mouths. And though Bunny was a brave little chap he knew it would never do for him to go anywhere near the alligators. As it was, he and his sister were some distance back from the shore, up near the center of the little island. The alligators did not seem to have noticed them.
"All right," Bunny answered. "I won't hurt any of the alligators. We'll go home and I'll tell daddy and Mr. Halliday and they can come and hunt them."
"That'll be better," Sue said, with a sigh of relief.
For a little while longer the two children remained looking at the great water lizards. Then they started for the place where they had waded from one island to the other.