"Rub two eggs together and she come," directed Pinto, holding out his bag to Jud.
Following the Indian's suggestion, Jud unsuspectingly rubbed two of the eggs against each other. They made a curious, penetrating, grating noise, like the squeal of chalk on a blackboard.
Hardly had the sound died away, when from out of a near-by wet thicket there came a roaring bellow that shook the very ground they stood on, and suddenly the air was filled with the sweet sickly scent of musk. Jud turned as if stung by a fire-ant, to see a pair of green eyes glaring at him above the jaws of a great alligator which had been lurking in the darkness of the jungle. As it lay there like an enormous lizard, the dark gray of its armored hide hardly showed against the shadows. On each side of the fore part of the upper jaw, two cone-shaped tusks showed white as polished ivory, fitting into sockets in the lower jaw. Even as Jud looked, the upper jaw of the vast saurian was raised straight up, showing the blood-red lining of the mouth gaping open fully three feet. Then, with a roar like distant thunder, the great reptile raised its body, as big as that of a horse, upon its short, squat legs, and rushed through the brush at Jud with a squattering gait, which, however, carried it over the ground at a tremendous rate of speed for a creature eighteen feet long.
It was Jud's first experience with an alligator, and with a yell he ran down the slope like a race-horse. Unfortunately for him, on a straight line downhill an alligator can run faster than a man, and this one began to overtake him rapidly. As he glanced back, the grinning jaws seemed right at his shoulder.
At first, Jud paid no attention, but ran straight as a deer will sometimes run between the rails to its death before a locomotive when one bound to the side would save it. At last, as Will and Joe also began to shout the same words over and over again, the idea penetrated Jud's bewildered brain and he sprang to one side and doubled on his trail. His pursuer, however, specialized in doubling itself. Unable to turn rapidly on account of its great length, and seeing its prey escaping, the alligator curved its body and the long serrated tail swung over the ground like a scythe. The extreme end of it caught Jud just above the ankles and swept him off his feet, standing him on his head in a thorn-bush from which he was rescued by Pinto and Will, who had followed close behind. The alligator made no further attempt at pursuit, but quickly disappeared in the depths of a marshy thicket.