pole, and gave it a good shake, and left go again, for it seemed
as if some one had given it a good rap with a heavy stick, and a jarring
sensation ran up my arm.

"No mistake about it this time," said Morgan, grinning. "Puts me in
mind of sniggling for eels, and pushing a worm at the end of a
willow-stick up an eel's burrow in a muddy bank. They give it a knock
like that sometimes, but of course not so hard. Well, why don't you go
on?"

"Go on with what?" I cried, wishing myself well out of the whole
business.

"Stirring of him up, and making him savage. But stop a moment, let's
have this ready."

He took out the piece of rope, and made a large noose, laying it on some
thick moss, and then turning to me again.

"Now then, my lad, give him a good stir up. Don't be afraid. Make him
savage, or else he won't hold on."

With a dimly defined notion of what we were aiming at, I gave the pole a
good wrench round in the hole, feeling it strike against something, and
almost simultaneously feeling something strike against it.

"That's the way, sir. Give it him again."

Growing reckless now, and feeling that I must not shrink, I gave the
pole another twist round, with the result that it was snatched out of my
hand.

"He has it," cried Morgan, excitedly. "Feel if he has got it fast,
Master George."

I took hold of the pole, gazing down with no little trepidation, in the
expectation of at any moment seeing some hideous monster rush out, ready
to seize and devour me.

But there was no response to my touch, the pole coming loosely into my
hand.

"Give him another stir up, Master George. They tell me that's the way
they do it to make them savage."

"But do we want to make the creature savage?" I said.

"Course we do! There, you do as I tell you, my lad, and you'll see."

I gave the pole a good poke round in the hole again, just as if I was
stirring up something in a huge pot, when almost before I had gone right
round--_Whang_! The pole quivered in my hand, and a thrill ran through
me as in imagination I saw a monstrous beast seize the end of the stick
in its teeth and give it a savage shake.

"Hurrah!" cried Morgan. "He has got it tight now. That's right, Master
George; let me come. We'll soon haul him out."

"No, no," I said, as excited now as the Welshman. "It may be
dangerous."

"We'll dangerous him, my lad."

"But he may bite."

"Well, let him. 'Gators' bites arn't poisonous, like snake