“See big one—over there.”
At a distance the object which he pointed out appeared to be the trunk of a fallen tree, half in water, half on the mud bank of the stream. It was motionless, and they stared at it without recognizing its shape and color. Expecting to see the glossy black back of an alligator, they observed that this creature was of an ashen gray, the color of an old sun-dried stump.
“Where? What is it?” whispered Chester.
“S-sh!” came the low, sibilant warning from Dave. “Heap big ’gator,—aal-pa-tah. You not want to wake him, scare him.”
“Huh!” grunted Jim. “No ’gator.”
“What? That old log is a——”
“Crocodile!”
Even as he spoke, Jim lowered his pole and took a paddle, with which he guided the dug-out forward without noise or splash. Dave followed his example. Together, almost side by side, the canoes with their breathless crews approached the crocodile. But unfortunately, as the hideous creature was to leeward of the canoes, there was no way for them to get the wind of it; and this fact accounted for a sudden startled movement of the beast. It turned its head, opened its huge jaws with a curious loud hiss, and then, straightening itself halfway on its short legs, began to slide backward into the water.
However, at the very instant that it began to move,—and it moved with astonishing rapidity, for so ungainly a brute,—a sharp sound broke the silence. Jim’s rifle spoke, and the report rang out startlingly.
With a gentle slide, the huge reptile had disappeared into the water. Anxiously they waited for him to rise to the surface again and show whether he had been fatally wounded. Jim could not tell whether or not his shot had taken effect.