<h2 id="c2">CHAPTER II. <br/><span class="small">AMONG THE PUZZLING SWAMP WATER TRAILS.</span></h2>
<p>“Alligator!” shrieked Smithy; and as this
was the very first saurian he had ever set eyes on,
not in confinement, his excitement was hardly to
be wondered at.</p>
<p>“Lookout, Giraffe, he’s after you!” cried Bumpus,
from the other boat, close by.</p>
<p>There was no need of spurring the lanky scout
on to any further exertions; for he had comprehended
that the living log was a scaly reptile, even
before he took that involuntary bath; and the instant
that his head came above the surface again
he made frantic haste to clamber back into the boat.</p>
<p>Allan had instantly stooped, and possessed himself
of a repeating Marlin rifle, which he kept
handy at all times now; and had that ’gator attempted
anything like hostile action, the chances
were that he must speedily have made the acquaintance
of a soft-nosed bullet that would probably have
finished his earthly career in a hurry.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_14">14</div>
<p>No doubt the denizen of the swamp was even
more badly frightened than Giraffe, for after that
one whirl and splash nobody ever saw him more.
But then, how was the lanky scout to know that?
Imagination peopled that dark waters with a myriad
of twelve-foot ’gators, all plunging toward the spot
where he was struggling to drag himself back into
the boat, though his soaked garments seemed to
weigh very nearly a whole ton.</p>
<p>“Lookout, Giraffe, or you’ll upset us all!”
shouted Bob White, who probably did not see any
great reason for all this haste, because conditions
always color such things differently.</p>
<p>“Help me in, somebody, can’t you?” gasped the
clinging boy. “Want to see me bit in half, do
you? Thad, you lend me a hand, since these other
fellows won’t? Oh! what was that?” as a great
splash was heard; but of course it was only Bumpus
playfully striking at the water with the flat
of his paddle, on pretense of “shooing” away the
sportive and hungry alligator, though no doubt he
had also in mind the idea of hastening Giraffe’s getting
over the gunwale on wings of fear.</p>
<p>They managed to pull him aboard, where he stood
looking all around, as though in the end a trifle disappointed
not to see a few monsters showing their
keen regret at being cheated out of a meal; for that
would have always added flavor to the story when
he came to tell it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_15">15</div>
<p>“Guess he’s gone down to the bottom!” suggested
Giraffe; “I kicked with all my might all the
time I was in the water, and that’s the only way
to scare a ’gator, a coon told me. But you can
laugh all you’ve a mind to, Step Hen and Bumpus,
I reckon you’d a done as much as I did if it’d been
you fell in. Why, I saw him open his jaws, and I
declare to goodness, he had a mouth big enough
to swallow a sugar barrel, and that’s the honest
truth, fellows.”</p>
<p>“I see plain enough that we’re due for some
rattling lively times while we’re down in old Louisiana,“
remarked Smithy. “But if you don’t mind,
Thad, please paddle your craft a little more to the
left, because the breeze is blowing straight from
you to us, and, well, you know what I mean.”</p>
<p>Bumpus was feeling so hilarious over seeing that
great splash taken by his persecutor, Giraffe, that
he did not pay the slightest attention to what Smithy
said.</p>
<p>“You know, fellows,” the fat scout went on to
remark, “up to now it’s been poor old Bumpus
who’s generally gone overboard, or got in trouble
like that; but seems as if times have changed, and
now Giraffe, he wants to take his turn. If I’d
been close enough, and had a boat-hook handy, sure
I’d a got it fast in the collar of your jacket, Giraffe.
And I’d a considered it a pleasure, too.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_16">16</div>
<p>“That’s right, I reckon you would, Bumpus;
you’re an <i>aw</i>ful accommodating chum, ain’t you?”
the tall scout sneered. “But see here, whatever
am I to do now, Thad?”</p>
<p>“Sit in the sun, and let your duds dry on you!”
suggested one comrade.</p>
<p>“The only trouble is, we have to bail out the
boat, because he’s nearly flooded us right now,”
Bob White asserted, beginning to get busy with a
big sponge.</p>
<p>“Had I ought to make a change, Thad?” demanded
Giraffe, ignoring these side thrusts, and appealing
to the fountain head.</p>
<p>“Just suit yourself,” replied the scout-master.</p>
<p>“That’s what I mean to do, only this is my new
suit, and I kinder hate to put it up to dry, for fear
it’ll shrink on me, and I can’t get out of it again,”
the lanky one went on to say.</p>
<p>Presently, as the air under the trees was not so
warm as if they had had more sunshine, and Giraffe
commenced to shiver, Thad told him he had
better make the change.</p>
<p>“You can wear your old suit right along, if you
have to,” he remarked; “and even if you have to
throw away the other, better do that than get a heavy
cold from trying to let it dry on you. That’s all
very well in hot August weather; but there’s a little
tang in the air, even away down South here, along
in December. So strip to the skin, and make yourself
comfortable.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_17">17</div>
<p>Giraffe concluded that after all this was the best
policy; and so he set to work, paying little heed to
the jests of his chums, who, like all boys, could
never let so good a chance to joke an unlucky companion
pass by.</p>
<p>“Next time you see a log, Giraffe,” Bumpus told
him, “take a second look before you go to punch
it with your paddle. They say logs down here have
got <i>teeth</i>, and can take a big bite right out of an
oar. We don’t want to lose any of our paddles;
and let me warn you that it’s risky jumping overboard
after one when you do drop it in the drink.
We’d hate to see you make a meal for a hungry
’gator; though for that matter it’d be a pretty slim
dinner he’d get!”</p>
<p>“Well, one thing sure,” retorted the tall scout,
who was now fully dressed, and feeling in readiness
to do battle again; “I wouldn’t blame any old ’gator
if he declined to gobble <i>you</i> for a relish right now,
and that’s what.”</p>
<p>“There you go again, but on account of your recent
trouble I’ll let it pass. A fellow that has just
been nearly scared to death ain’t responsible for
half he says,” and the fat boy waved his hand toward
the other as though he really meant it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_18">18</div>
<p>“From the way you’ve been pestering us lately
about that stuff you forgot to take home to your
mother from the drug store, I’d think you had
troubles of your own to bother about,” retorted Giraffe.
“I never saw such a fellow to keep thinking
of little things that don’t amount to a row of
beans. Why, you admit it only cost five cents, and
yet to hear you let out a howl about it every little
while, you’d think it was worth a whole dollar.”</p>
<p>“It ain’t that,” said Bumpus, with dignity, “but
I’m so built that when anything gets on my nerves
like that has, I just can’t sleep till I’ve solved the
puzzle. Did I take that little package home and
give it to my mother, or did I leave it anywhere on
the way? That’s the question I’d like to have
solved; and I mean it shall be, if I have to write to
three separate boys whose houses I stopped in on
my way home, to tell ’em what a ge-lorious time I
expected to have down here.”</p>
<p>“But you did write to your mother from Memphis,
to ask her about it; and when we got letters
back at that last town you nearly took a fit because
there wasn’t any for you,” Davy Jones went on
to say, taking a hand in the affair, though he was
as far away from Bumpus in the other end of the
boat as he could possibly get.</p>
<p>“That’s all very true,” replied the fat scout, composedly;
“and now I’ve got to just hold in, and
wait a long time till we get more mail. It bothers
me more’n words can tell you. A scout should
never fail in his duty; and my mother said she
wanted what she wrote on that paper the worst
kind. What if it was only five cents; I’m not thinking
of the amount, but the fulfilling of my duty.
Thad always says that’s the main thing to consider.
Faithful in little things, is my motto.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_19">19</div>
<p>“Hear! hear!” cheered Bob White, from the
other boat.</p>
<p>“Good boy, Bumpus! them’s our sentiments,
too!” declared Step Hen, hilariously.</p>
<p>“Huh! little things, hey?” sniffed Giraffe;
“please get busy fellows, and draw ahead of our
friends in the other boat once more. Seems to me
the air is better up ahead.”</p>
<p>“But make him beware of the logs, mind you,”
called Bumpus, as a parting shot.</p>
<p>They proceeded carefully along for some time.
The channel they were following seemed to be very
winding, and yet there could be no reasonable doubt
but that it was constantly taking the expedition
deeper into the great Alligator Swamp all the time.</p>
<p>Thad had tried to get all the information possible
about the strange place he intended to visit, but
few people could assist him. One man gladly allowed
him to have a very rude chart that he said
“Alligator” Smith, who made a practice of hunting
the denizens of the swamp for their skins, had
once drawn for him, with a bit of charcoal, and a
piece of wrapping paper. This was when the
“cracker” had lost a heifer which he suspected had
either strayed into the fastnesses of the swamp; or
else been killed, and eaten by some “hideout” escaped
convicts, who found a refuge from pursuit
within the almost impenetrable depths of the extensive
morass.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_20">20</div>
<p>There were things about this chart which none of
them could fully grasp. Thad had some hopes of
being fortunate enough to come upon the man who
had drawn it, as he was said to be somewhere about,
pursuing his queer vocation of acquiring a living
from securing the skins of alligators he managed to
shoot or trap.</p>
<p>And it was in this way that the eight chums had
actually dared to start into one of the least known
places in the whole State of Louisiana. Some of
those with whom they had spoken about their intended
trip had warned them not to attempt such a
risky thing without a guide. But Thad was fairly
wild to learn whether there could be any truth in the
strange story that had come to his guardian in that
letter; and he just felt that he could not stand the
suspense another day.</p>
<p>Inquiry had developed the fact that inside of the
last few months a man and a little girl had really
been seen several times, though nobody knew where
he stayed; and some said they had seen him paddling
out of the swamp in a pirogue, which had evidently
been fashioned from the trunk of a big tree
with considerable skill.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_21">21</div>
<p>As the afternoon advanced, and they found themselves
getting deeper and deeper in the gloomy
swamp, the boys began to realize that this singular
expedition might not turn out to be such a pleasant
picnic after all. There was always a peril hovering
over them that must not be lightly treated; and this
was the danger of losing themselves in those winding
channels; for they had been told that more than
once men had gone into Alligator Swamp never to
be seen again by their fellows.</p>
<p>Thad and Allan had arranged a plan whereby
they might mark their way; and if it came to the
worst they would stand a chance of returning over
the same passages that they were following in entering
the place.</p>
<p>They did this first by attaching a small white
piece of cloth to a bush while still in sight of the
last one that had been marked. When these finally
gave out they proceeded to break a branch, and allow
it to hang in a certain way that was bound to
catch their eye, and tell them how to paddle in
order to keep passing along the chain.</p>
<p>This was a well-known method among woodsmen
in these great swamps, where one can be
turned around so easily, and all things look so much
alike that even the best of experienced paddlers
may make mistakes that are apt to cost dearly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_22">22</div>
<p>The boys fell quiet as the shadows lengthened.
To tell the truth all of them were growing a bit
tired from this constant paddling, and twisting their
heads in trying to see so many sights at once; and
when Giraffe hinted broadly that in his opinion he
thought it might be high time they picked out some
nice spot for stopping over, so that the fire could
be started, and supper gotten underway, nearly all
the rest gave him a smile of encouragement.</p>
<p>“Just what I was thinking about myself,” said
Thad; “and unless I’m mistaken, right now I
glimpse the place we’re looking for; because, you
understand, we ought to have a good high and dry
spot for a camp.”</p>
<p>“Do you know whether these here ’gators can
climb, Thad?” asked the fat scout, a little nervously.</p>
<p>“Not a tree, certain sure, Bumpus, so you’re safe,
if you only show enough speed in getting up among
the branches; but they just <i>love</i> to slide down banks,
they say, and don’t you go to depending on any such
to keep your scaly friends from sharing your
blanket,” Davy remarked, maliciously.</p>
<p>“Oh! who’s afraid; not me?” sang out Bumpus,
puffing out his chest as he spoke; “besides, haven’t
I got a gun along with me this trip; and some of
you happen to know that I can use the same. I’ve
got a few crack shots to my credit, ain’t I, Thad?”</p>
<p>Before the scout-master could either affirm or
deny this assertion, Giraffe gave a loud yell, and
was seen to be standing up in his boat, pointing
wildly ahead.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_23">23</div>
<p>“Looky there, would you, boys!” he cried;
“that’s a coon in the boat, seems like to me, and
he’s paddling like everything to get away from us.
What say, shall we give chase, and see if four pair
of arms are better than one? Maybe, now, it’s only
a hideout darky, scared nigh to death athinking
we’re the soldiers come hunting after him. And
then again, how d’we know that it mightn’t be
Felix himself; because, you remember, they did say
he was burnt as brown as mahogany! Whoop! see
him make that paddle fairly burn the air; and ain’t
he flying to beat the band, though? Thad, why
<i>don’t</i> you give the word to chase after him, when
you can see we’re all crazy to let out top-notch
speed.”</p>
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