“Bless my watch chain!” he suddenly cried. It’s alive!”
And the “log” was indeed so, for there was a sudden flash of white teeth, a long red opening showed, and then came a click as an immense alligator, having opened and closed his mouth, sank out of sight in a swirl of water.
Mr. Damon drew back so suddenly that he tilted the canoe, and the black paddlers looked around wonderingly.
–––––––––––––––––––
-82-
“Alligator,” explained Jacinto succinctly, in their tongue.
“Ugh!” they grunted.
“Bless my — bless my — — ” hesitated Mr. Damon, and for one of the very few times in his life his language failed him.
“Are there many of them hereabouts?” asked Ned, looking back at the swirl left by the saurian.
“Plenty,” said the guide, with a shrug of his shoulders. He seemed to do as much talking that way, and with his hands, as he did in speech. “The river is full of them.”
“Dangerous?” queried Tom.
“Don’t go in swimming,” was the significant advice. “Wait, I’ll show you,” and he called up the canoe just behind.
In this canoe was a quantity of provisions. There was a chunk of meat among other things, a gristly piece, seeing which Mr. Damon had objected to its being brought along, but the guide had said it would do for fish bait. With a quick motion of his hand, as he sat in the awning-covered stern with Tom, Ned and the others, Jacinto sent the chunk of meat out into the muddy stream.
Hardly a second later there was a rushing in the water as though a submarine were about to come up. An ugly snout was raised, two
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150