ators--alligators on all sides. They were surrounded by them now,
and the girls would no more have gotten out of the boat, even if there
had been a bridge nearby on which to walk to shore, than they would have
dived overboard.

"Oh, isn't it awful!" gasped Ruth, covering her eyes with her hands.

"Can they get at us?" asked Alice, more practically.

"Not if you stay in the boat, I should say," declared Paul. But he was
not altogether sure in his own mind.

As for Russ he said nothing. But he was busy focusing the small moving
picture camera on the unusual scene. True, he had views of the saurians
at the alligator farm near St. Augustine, but this was different. The
views he was now getting showed the big, repulsive creatures in their
natural haunts.

"This sure is a big piece of luck!" cried Jed Moulton, as he brought his
rifle up from the bottom of the boat. "It is a rare bit of luck! I didn't
know there was so many 'gators in this neighborhood!"

"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