CHAPTER IV
CHUNKY IN THE MUD
Poor Chunky was having a dreadful time. Never before had he been caught by a crocodile. It would not have been so bad, he thought in his hippo way, if it had happened on top of the water. There some of the big animals might have seen him and they would have helped him. But down under the muddy river—who could help him there?
Chunky flopped about in the water, sticking his feet deep down in the muddy bottom, and pushing back as hard as he could, trying to get his nose loose from the crocodile’s teeth. But the crocodile held fast to the hippo.
“Let me go! Let me go!” blubbered Chunky, speaking in a strange way because his mouth was partly closed by the crocodile.
“Indeed and I’ll not let you loose!” answered the crocodile. “I want you for my supper!” At least he might have answered that if his mouth had not been busy holding fast to Chunky’s nose.
Chunky pulled and pulled and pulled, but still he could not get loose, and the crocodile was slowly, but surely, dragging him out to a deeper part of the river, when, all at once, there was a great splashing in the water, and something big and heavy sank down beside the little hippo boy.
“Get away from here, Mr. Crocodile!” a voice shouted, sounding like thunder under the water. “Leave my Chunky alone.”
And then a great, big body began pushing and shoving the crocodile, and Chunky saw that it was his father who had come to save him.
Mr. Hippo, being big and strong, squeezed the crocodile up against the hard bank of the river, down under the water, and nearly squeezed the breath out of him. So the crocodile was very glad, indeed, to take his jaws off Chunky’s nose and let the little hippo go. Then, with another shove of his big body, Mr. Hippo thrust the crocodile far out into the river. The crocodile made a snap at Mr. Hippo, trying to bite him, but the big hippo floated out of the way just in time, and that was the end of the fight.
“Oh dear!” cried Chunky to his father, who swam up beside him under water. “Oh dear! How my nose hurts!”