e
saw Mark he screamed, "Fire! Fire quick! His eyes! I'm letting go."

Looking along the boy's body Mark saw a pair of great jaws closed
firmly upon his right foot, though the rest of the animal, whatever it
was, was hidden in a thicket of bushes which were violently agitated.
He could see the protruding eyes; and, springing across the opening, he
placed the muzzle of the rifle close against one of them, and fired.

The horrid head was lifted high in the air with a bellow of rage and
pain. As it fell it disappeared in the bushes, which were beaten down
by the animal's death struggle, and then all was still.

Upon firing, Mark had quickly thrown another cartridge from the
magazine into the chamber of his rifle, and held it in readiness for
another shot. He waited a moment after the struggles ceased, and
finding that no further attack was made, turned his attention to the
boy, who lay motionless and as though dead at his feet. His eyes were
closed, and Mark knew that he had fainted, though he had never seen a
person in that condition before.

His first impulse was to try and restore the boy to consciousness; but
his second, and the one upon which he acted, was to assure himself that
the animal he had shot was really dead, and incapable of making another
attack. Holding his rifle in one hand, and cautiously parting the
bushes with the other, he peered, with a loudly beating heart, into the
thicket. There, stretched out stiff and motionless, he saw the body of
a huge alligator. It was dead--dead as a mummy; there was no doubt of
that; and without waiting to examine it further, Mark laid down his
rifle and went to the river for water.

He brought three hatfuls, and dashed them, one after another, in the
boy's face before the latter showed any signs of consciousness. Then
the closed eyes were slowly opened, and fixed for an instant upon Mark,
with the same look of horror that he had first seen in them, and the
boy tried to rise to his feet, but fell back with a moan of pain.

Mark had already seen that the boy's right foot was terribly mangled
and covered with blood, and he went quickly for more water with which
to bathe it. After he had washed off the blood, and bound the wounded
foot as well as he could with his handkerchief and one of his shirt
sleeves torn into strips, he found that the boy had again opened his
eyes, and seemed to have fully recovered his consciousness.

"Do you feel better?" asked Mark.

"Yes,"