“Oh, are you going to shoot?” cried Ruth, as she saw the old hunter prepare to take aim.

“Well, that’s what I was countin’ on, Miss,” he replied.  “I can’t exactly get a ‘gator without shootin’ him.  They won’t come when you call ’em, you know.  But if it’s goin’ to distress you, Miss, why of course I can—­”

“Oh, no!” she cried hastily.  “Of course I don’t want to deprive you of making a living.  That was selfish of me.  Only I was afraid if you shot from the boat it might upset, and if we were thrown into the water with all those horrid things—­ugh!”

She could not finish.

“I guess you’re right, Miss,” assented Jed.  “It will be better not to shoot from the boat, especially as we’ve got a pretty good load in, and my gun is a heavy one, though it don’t recoil such an awful lot.  Now we’ll take you girls back to the steamer, and then I’ll come here and make a bag—­an alligator bag, you might say,” he added with grim humor.

“Oh, I want to stay and see you shoot!” cried Alice, impulsively.

“Oh, no, Alice!” cried her sister.  “Daddy wouldn’t like it, you know.”

“Well, perhaps not,” admitted the younger girl, more readily than her sister had hoped.  “Shooting alligators is not exactly nice work, I suppose, however much it needs to be done, for we have to have their skins for leather.”

“Then suppose you take us back,” suggested Ruth.  “I’m sorry to make so much trouble—­”

“Not at all!” interrupted Paul.  “I think it will be best.  But if I can borrow a gun I’m going to get a ’gator myself.”

“And get one for me; will you, Paul?” begged Alice.  “I’ll have my valise after all!”

“Surely,” he answered.

“Just a few minutes more,” requested Russ.  “There’s a big one over there I want to film.  I guess he must be the grandfather of this alligator roost.”

“I never saw such a nest of ’em!” exclaimed Jed.  “I can make a pot of money out of this.  None of the other hunters has stumbled on it.  I’m in luck!”

Ruth and Alice had lost much of their first fear, and really the only danger now was lest one of the big saurians upset the boat, which it might easily do, by coming up under it.  The alligators showed no disposition to make an attack.  Indeed, most of them swam past the boat without noticing it, though a few of the smaller ones scuttled off when they came up and eyed the craft and its occupants.

Out on the sand bar, sunning themselves, were nearly a score of the big creatures.  Now and then one would crawl over the others, or plunge into the sluggish stream with a splash.

“Some fine skins here,” commented Jed, with a professional air.  “When we come back, boys, we’ll have a lively time.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?” asked Ruth, with a shudder.

“Alligators ain’t half so dangerous as folks think,” said Jed.  “I’ve hunted ’em, boy and man, for years, and I never got much hurt.  One I wounded once nipped me on the leg, and I’ve got the scar yet.”