uzzled me at first, but which the next minute I knew to be an
alligator's tail.

I turned to my three, now well over the shallows, and hesitated as to
whether I dared risk going after them, not knowing but that an alligator
might make a rush out of the deep black pool and seize them first, or
failing them perhaps seize me.

But I was hungry too, and leaping in, I secured all three birds after
splashing through the water a bit, and reached the shore again in
safety, but not without many an excited look round at the deep place
where I knew the monsters were lurking; and as I shook the water from my
legs, and stamped about on the bank, I found myself thinking what a pity
it was such a lovely country should be marred by dangerous beasts and
horrible reptiles like the rattlesnakes and alligators.

Then I thought of the ducks, and as I held them all three by their
orange legs, and looked down at their beautifully-coloured plumage, all
soft browns and chestnuts, and with wing-spots of lovely green, and
having a head of the same colour, my conscience smote me, and I found
myself wondering what the ducks thought that beautiful morning when they
were having their baths and preening themselves ready for a long flight
or a good swim. And I seemed to see them all again playing about, and
passing their heads over their backs, and rubbing the points of their
beaks in the oil-gland to make their plumage keep off the water. And
how soft and close it was!

"What must they have thought," I said to myself, "about a monster who
came with a horrible, fire-dealing weapon that strikes them down like a
flash of lightning? Not much room for me to complain about the
alligators!" I exclaimed. "But if I had not killed the ducks they
would have killed all kinds of insects and little fishes, and if they
did not kill the insects and fishes, the insects and fishes would have
killed smaller ones. Everything seems to be killing everything else,
and I suppose it's because we are all hungry, as I am now."

I walked sharply back along the river-bank with the sun now well up, and
before long came in sight of a little cloud of smoke rising softly above
the trees, and soon after I could hear the crackling of wood, and as I
drew near, there was Pomp dodging about in the smoke, piling up pieces
of dried stick, and making a roaring fire.

The sight of this took away all my feelings of compunction, and in
imagination I began to see the brown sides of t