tand for
anything. But Tony, tell me, what is that far-away booming we hear?"

"Bull!" remarked the other, with a chuckle.

"You don't mean it?" exclaimed Larry, sitting up to listen. "Well,
now, it does sound like it, too. But see here, Tony, didn't you say
only a little while ago, that there wasn't a single man within twenty
miles of us; unless it might be some runaway darky hiding out in the
swamp to escape the chain gang?"

"That is so, Larry," replied the swamp boy, who was by now growing
familiar enough with his comrades to call them by their first names.
"This no reg'lar bull. It never saw farmyard. It live in water, come
up on shore sometime, and holler to make 'nother bull come fight."

"Oh! you mean an alligator bull, don't you?" cried Larry, "how silly of
me not to understand at first. And is that one bellowing now? He must
be a giant to make such a row."

"Not so big, like ten feet p'raps," replied Tony, carelessly.

"How big do they run--about fifty feet?" asked the ignorant one; at
which Tony actually laughed, the first time they had ever really heard
him give way.

"Never hear of such big one, Larry. Twelve feet, some say fifteen
most. And that professor he tell me 'gator that big more'n two hundred
years old, much more!"

"Whew; what a whopper!" exclaimed Larry, though whether he meant the
age of the saurian, or the story told to the swamp boy, he did not
explain.

"One thing sure," remarked Phil, as the time drew near for them to
retire, "with that blessed old swamp, and its many nasty inhabitants so
close by, I'm going to keep an eye out again tonight. Perhaps we won't
be disturbed by another bobcat; but I wouldn't feel quite easy unless I
kept my good Marlin handy. So, boys, if you hear me making a noise
again during the night, don't get alarmed. I won't be talking in my
sleep, be sure of that. But listen, Tony, what animal do you suppose
makes that far-away sound? If I didn't know we were cut off from
civilization I'd say it was the baying of a dog at the moon."

CHAPTER X

WHEN THE SLEEPER AWOKE

"That's what it is, sah; a dawg!" said Tony, after listening for a
minute.

"Then we must be closer to your people than you thought," remarked Phil.

"That cain't be so. My folks never comes up this far. Yuh see, it
sorter lies atween the town up yander, an' our diggin's," the swamp boy
explained.

"But how about the dog, then?" Phil went on, becoming curious.
"Per