But it was Hubert's first experience with the alligator of Florida and southern Georgia, which, in his ignorance, he associated with the crocodile of the far East, and the boy was terrified.
"They are going to eat us up!" he gasped, after he had tottered, swayed, and very nearly lost his balance beyond recovery.
"I don't think they'll do anything to us, if we are careful not to run into them," said Ted, reassuringly, though not without some real apprehension of trouble.
But this is precisely what happened. Hubert's desperate struggles to regain his balance caused the log to depart from the course Ted was trying to maintain, and, before it could be prevented, they floated between two motionless alligators, almost touching them, and then the forward end of the log ran aground on the back of a third.
There followed a great stir and splashing. Hubert went overboard with the first shock, and the powerful flirt of a frightened or enraged alligator's tail sent Ted, slightly stunned, into the water three or four feet from the log.
Both boys swam desperately back to their one refuge, conscious of the plunging of the excited amphibians as they did so, and fearing every moment that an arm or a leg would be bitten off. But when they again stood upright on their log, balancing themselves once more with the long sticks to which they had persisted in clinging, they saw with some measure of relief that the nearest of the alligators now visible were some yards distant. In their stupid astonishment or lazy indifference, the creatures had allowed an easy prey to escape them.
With all possible speed, yet cautiously, the boys paddled their log away from the undesirable neighborhood, breathing more freely only after they were out of the pool and well on their way through the sedge toward the "house."
"Maybe they didn't think we were good to eat," said Hubert, wondering, and then joining nervously in Ted's merry laugh.
"I've heard that they eat animals sometimes, but they live on fish mostly," said Ted. "It was lucky, though, that we had the log to get up on."
"Would they have eaten us if we hadn't had it?"
"I don't think so, but I shouldn't care to risk it a second time. Hunters say alligators don't attack man except in self-defense."