dy pull of the line and dragged
away from the edge of the sand until she pointed fair into the channel
again. Forward, men hove in the cable until the anchor was underfoot;
aft, men tailed on to the main halliards and sent the great mainsail
aloft with a will. Barry waved the second mate back to the wheel and
sent Rolfe forward to finish picking up the anchor. Then he swung around
at a shout from the shore. He had momentarily forgotten Little.

"Damnation!" he breathed, and jerked his rifle to his shoulder. Then he
dropped his elbow to the rail, took snap-sights and fired.

The greatest alligator of them all, the patriarch of all saurians, had
attacked Little. That agile young man saw his foe in time to avoid the
rush by leaping over the straining hawser, knee-high, and the ugly jaws
closed with a crash on the rope. Barry's shot rang out simultaneously
with the singing snap of a Manila strand, and the heavy bullet chugged
home in the vulnerable skin on the alligator's throat.

The _Barang_ gathered way, and the hawser sagged into the water as the
strain was released. Whatever Little's limitations were as a seaman, he
lacked nothing of common sense; he saw that the ship was independent of
the line now, and Barry received another shock while trying to decide
how to get his friend safely on board again.

"That's the stuff, Barry!" Little shouted, capering madly as the
alligator rolled over towards the river. "Keep your blue eye on these
fellows and haul away on the rope!"

With the words he was sawing away busily at the Manila with a fearsome
knife he had invested in as part of a sailor's outfit.

"Stop! You're crazy!" bawled the skipper. Rolfe cursed luridly, and even
Vandersee's sleek face clouded.

If Little heard, he made no sign. Without a wasted second after the line
parted, he followed the running end down to the water, took a grip on
it, and plunged in with a shout:

"Pull away! Watch out for my toes, Barry!"

The little brown men of the crew needed no order to pull. The sheer
intrepidity of the man on the line had ensured their reverence and
loyalty, and the heavy hawser came inboard with a whiz. At the end of it
struggled Little, striking out frantically with his legs and free hand
to keep his head above the water at the pull of those eager arms. As he
took the water, from four separate points along the bank great reptiles
slithered; their snouts and protuberant eyes left behind them sinister
ripples as