"Oh, you're never going to do that!" gasped Grace. "Why that would—make them mad!"
"Well," answered Betty, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't know that a mad alligator is any worse than any other kind. They're all mad, as far as I'm concerned, and throwing stones at them can't make them any worse. I rather side with Mollie. We may drive them away."
"Yes, and it may drive them toward us," cried Amy. "Please don't!"
"We won't coax them this way if we can help it," said Betty. "You may be sure of that. But we must do something. We can't stay out on this almost-island much longer. We'll have to eat, and——"
"Where's Tom?" suddenly asked Grace. "He ought to be able to rescue us. He knows all about alligators—and—and such things."
"Yes, maybe he can charm them away," suggested Mollie half-sarcastically. "But I don't see him."
The girls looked toward where they had left their escort setting the "table" on the grass. They had a glimpse of the white cloth, and the various things upon it, but Tom was not in sight.
"Maybe—maybe an alligator ate him!" said Grace. She was half-crying now.
"Don't be silly!" directed Betty in a stern tone. It was sometimes necessary to be severe with Grace when she was likely to give way to her feelings. But in this case Betty did not want to be too much so, for she realized all that her chum had suffered in the disappearance of her brother.
The two big alligators, and they were exceptionally large, so the girls said afterward, seemed to have taken permanent possession of the narrow neck of land that connected the peninsula with the main shore. The girls were practically prisoners on what, with a rise of the river, would be an island.