"Yes," said Frank; "and I meant to scare you worse than that, and
should have if the alligator hadn't caught me. I saw you and your
father go down the river that morning, and heard him say he was going
to Tallahassee, and I waited then for you to come back alone. I drew
out the shot from one barrel of my gun, and was going to fire a charge
of powder at you when you got close to the point. I thought perhaps you
would be so scared that you would upset your canoe and lose your rifle
overboard. Then I thought I might get it after you had gone, for the
water is shallow there, and I wanted a rifle awfully."

"Oh! what a bad boy you are," said Ruth, shaking her pretty head. "Yes,
I know I am," said Frank, "but I ain't going to be any longer if I can
help it."

"How did that alligator get you, anyway?" asked Mark, who was very
curious upon this point.

"Why, I pulled off my boots because they were wet and hurt my feet;
then I lay down to wait for you, and went to sleep. I suppose the
'gator found it warm enough that day to come out of the mud, where he
had been asleep all winter. Of course he felt hungry after such a long
nap, and when he saw my bare foot thought it would make him a nice
meal. I was waked by feeling myself dragged along the ground, and
finding my foot in what felt like a vise. I caught hold of a tree, and
held on until it seemed as though my arms would be pulled out. I yelled
as loud as I could all the time, while the 'gator pulled. He twisted my
foot until I thought the bones must be broken, and that I must let go.
Then you came, Mark, and that's all I remember until I was in the
canoe, and you were paddling up the river."

"Was that the first time you were ever in that canoe?" asked Mark, a
new suspicion dawning in his mind.

"No; I had used her 'most every night, and one night I went as far as
St. Mark's in her."

"What made you bring the canoe back at all?" asked Mrs. Elmer.

"'Cause everybody round here would have known her, and known that I had
stole her if they'd seen me in her," answered the boy.

"And did you shoot poor Bruce?" asked Ruth.

"Who's Bruce?"

"Why, our dog. He came to us more than a week ago, shot so bad that he
could hardly walk."

"Yes, I shot him because he wouldn't go into the water and fetch out a
duck I had wounded; but his name is Jack. I didn't kill him though, for
I saw him on your back porch last Sunday when you were all over the
river, and he barked at me."

"