Bill landed on the small of his back, but just as soon as he was able to get his balance under water, he struck upwards with both hands and feet. If a rising alligator had been the cause of the canoe’s capsizing, he wasn’t staying in that unlikely spot!—not any longer than needful.
But instead of shooting to the surface, as he naturally expected, Bill found himself held fast in an interminable network of stems and roots. The horrible sensation of strangling sent all thought of ’gators, poisonous snakes out of his head. Air—he must have air. Nothing else mattered now. He tore at the tangled stems with the vicious energy of a madman.
At last, his lungs bursting, his head popped up through the pads. As he shook the water from his eyes, Sam’s black pate appeared above the surface.
“Whar de ’gator?” he spluttered.
“Search me,” gasped Bill. “I didn’t even see him.”
The dugout floated bottom upwards a few yards away. From beyond it came Osceola’s voice.
“Hey, you two! This is no swimming pool. Quit swapping yarns and give me a hand with this canoe!”
“You go, Marse Bill,” begged Sam. “I’se afraid dese here chaps will sink.” With an effort he raised his right hand above the water, and Bill saw that it grasped a duck. “I done tied dese here birds all together fore we shoved off,” explained the darkey. “Dey’s de first thing I grabbed when dat ol’ ’gator come up underneath de boat and turn us over. Dey like to drownded me down in de weeds, an’ it ain’t likely I’se gwine to turn ’em loose now to fix no dugout. Unh-unh! Not me!”
Bill, with an amused grunt, started swimming for the canoe in the middle of this narrative. But by the time he reached it, Osceola had righted it, and worked his way aboard by pulling himself up the rounded stern. When waist-high to the counter, he seemed to spring forward on his hands, spreading his legs at the same time so as to straddle both bulwarks. A second later he was sitting on the low thwart, holding out a helping hand to Bill.
“Gee, you’re an ace in the water, all right,” gasped Bill, once he was aboard. “Some day you’ve got to teach me that trick, Osceola.”