“If you feel that way about it, I’m with you, Dick,” said Ned, as he began to take off his shoes.  But before he reached the water the reptile had been caught, and Dick waded ashore with the wriggling little alligator in his hand.

“There’s a bigger one in there.  He whacked me on the shin with his tail, just after I caught the little one.  Let’s get him.”

The boys waded side by side, the length of the pond, several times without finding another ’gator, although the occasional roiling of the water showed that there were others in the pond.  They were about to give up the hunt when something struck Ned’s leg and, grabbing suddenly at the thing, he found that he had a five-foot alligator by the head.  He held the jaws of the ’gator shut while Dick seized the hind legs of the reptile, and together they carried the creature ashore.

“I wonder where that fellow was hidden,” said Dick, after the alligator had been safely tied.  “My toes have felt in every inch of the mud in the bottom of that pond.  Maybe there’s another one.  Let’s get him,” and Dick started into the pond.

“Wait till I get some clubs and I’ll be with you.  There may be a big ’gator in there who wouldn’t be satisfied with a toe.”

It was well they had clubs when they went back in the pond, for after a few minutes’ searching, Dick struck something, and the tail of a reptile came to the surface beside him.  As he grabbed it with both hands, and hung on with all his strength, a long body curved upward from it, a big head was uplifted, and two rows of ivory teeth gleamed from wide-opened jaws before Dick’s eyes.  Before the boy could move or the beast strike, Ned’s club came crashing down on the reptile’s head.  As the jaws closed and the head fell back, a second and yet more furious blow fell upon it.  As they dragged the stunned or dead ’gator out of the pond, Ned said: 

“I’m going to round-skin this alligator and save the skull, for mounting.  I’ll keep it in my den as a reminder of this trip and of you.”

“If it hadn’t been for your club, it would have been more of a reminder of me than it is now.”

The alligator came to life a few times, while they were skinning it, and had to be killed over again, and the tail did some wiggling even after the spine had been severed.  When the skinning operation was over the boys went back to camp, where they found an old kettle, in which they boiled the skull of the alligator and cleaned it of flesh and brains in preparation for mounting.

[Illustration:  “HE HELD THE JAWS OF THE ’GATOR SHUT, WHILE DICK SEIZED THE HIND LEGS OF THE REPTILE”]

“How did you sleep last night, Dick?” asked Ned, the next morning.

“Didn’t sleep at all.  This place is sure bad medicine.  First the hoots of the owls and the snarls of the wildcats kept me awake, then the booming of the big alligators worried me, and after I did get to sleep, the ghost of that alligator that we killed to-day shook his white teeth in my face, and I could feel the man in the grave under me trying to push me off of it.  Let’s get out of this river this morning, Ned.”