ady; but that's how I felt. There we are, then. I'm
ready, Master Nic, if you'll go on steady, on'y taking a dip now and
then to keep her head straight."

He held up the iron hook, which began to spin round, and he chuckled
aloud.

"I wouldn't be zuch a vool as to throw a thing like that into the water
at home, Master Nic," he said, "for no vish would be zuch a vool as to
run at it; but out here the vish are only zavages, and don't know any
better. That's what I hopes."

Nic began to dip an oar now and then, so as to avoid the rotten stumps,
snags, and half-fallen trees, as the stream carried them on, so that he
had little opportunity for noting the occupants of this dismal swamp;
but Pete's eyes were sharp, and he saw a good deal of the hideous, great
lizard-like creatures lying about on the mud or upon rotten trunks, with
their horny sides glistening in the pencils of light which pierced the
foliage overhead, or made sunny patches where, for the most part, all
was a dim twilight, terribly suggestive of what a man's fate might be if
he overbalanced himself and fell out of the boat.

"I believe them great 'gators are zo hungry," said Pete to himself,
"that they'd rush at one altogether and finish a fellow, bones and all."

At last: "Looks a reg'lar vishy place, Master Nic; zo here goes."

Pete gave the bright hook a swing and cast it half-a-dozen yards from
the boat to where it fell with a splash, which was followed by a curious
movement of the amber-hued water; and then he began to snatch with the
line, so as to make the bright iron play about.

Then there was a sudden check.

"Back water, Master Nic," cried Pete. "I'm fast in zomething."

"Yes," said Nic, obeying his order; "you're caught in a sunken tree.
Mind, or you'll break your line."

"That's what I'm feared on, Master Nic, but it's 'bout the liveliest
tree I ever felt. Look where the line's going. I'm feared it's gone."

The line was cutting the water and gliding through Pete's fingers till
he checked it at the end, when a black tail rose above the surface and
fell with a splash, and the line slackened and was hauled in.

"Hook aren't gone, zir," said Pete as he drew it over the side. "Rum
vishing that there. Why, it were one o' them 'gators, five or six foot
long. Let's try lower down."

They tried as Pete suggested, and there was another boil in the water,
but the hook was drawn in without a touch; and Pete tried again and
again, till