There was considerable excitement among the other players when the girls and children came back, accompanied by Jed, and told of their adventure.

Much was made over the alligator hunter, and Mrs. Maguire was profuse in her thanks. Then, in the next breath, she scolded the tots for wandering so far away.

"I think they won't do it again," said Ruth, with a smile, as she recalled their fright.

"No, sir! Never no more!" declared Tommy, earnestly.

Bad as the scare had been, its effects were not lasting, and Ruth and Alice were able to take their part in the drama that was being filmed.

Jed Moulton looked on, his eyes big with wonder.

"That beats shootin' bobcats!" he declared at the conclusion of the performance.

Jed at once became a favorite with all, and when Mr. Pertell learned that he was quite a successful hunter he made him an offer.

"You come along with us," the manager urged. "I want to get a film of alligator hunting, and I'll make it worth your while to do some of your stunts before the camera. I'll pay you well, and you can have all the alligators you shoot."

"Say, that suits me--right down to the ground!" cried Jed, heartily.

"I'll take you up on that."

So Jed became attached to the moving picture outfit, and a cheerful and valuable addition he proved. For he knew the country like a book, and offered valuable suggestions as to where new and striking scenic backgrounds could be obtained.

An uneventful week followed the episode of the bobcat. The _Magnolia_ went up and down sluggish streams and bayous, while the company of players acted their parts, or rested beneath the palms and under the graceful Spanish moss.

"But it is getting lonesome and tiresome--being away from civilization so long," complained Miss Pennington one day. "We can't get any mail, or anything."

"Who wants mail, when you can sit out on deck and look at such a scene as that?" asked Alice, pointing to a view down a beautiful river.

"Don't you want to come for a row?" asked Paul of Alice, after luncheon.

"I think so," she answered. "Where is Ruth?"

"We'll all go together," he proposed. "Russ wants to get a few pictures, and Jed Moulton is going along to show us where there are some likely spots for novel scenes."

"Of course I'll come!" cried Alice, enthusiastically, as she went to her stateroom to make ready.

A little later the four young people, with the alligator hunter, set out in a big rowboat. Russ took with him a small moving picture camera, as he generally did, even when he had no special object in view.

They rowed up the stream in which the _Magnolia_ was resting, her bow against a fern bank, and presently the party was in a solitude that was almost oppressive. There was neither sign nor sound of human being, and the steamer was lost to sight around a bend in the stream.

"Isn't it wonderful here?" murmured Ruth.

"It certainly is," agreed Russ who, with Paul, was rowing.

"It sure is soothin'," said Jed. "Many a time when I ain't had no luck, and feel all tuckered out, I sneak off to a place like this and I feel jest glad to be alive."

He put it crudely enough, but the others understood his homely philosophy.

They rowed slowly, pausing now and then to gather some odd flower, or to look at some big tree almost hidden under the ma.s.s of Spanish moss.

Alice, who had gone to the bow, was looking ahead, when suddenly she called out:

"Oh, look at the funny logs! They're bobbing up and down all over. See!"

Jed and the others looked to where she pointed, toward a sand bar in the stream. Then the old hunter called out:

"Logs! Them ain't logs! Them's alligators! We've run into a regular nest of 'em! I'm glad I brought my gun along!"

"Oh! Alligators!" gasped Ruth, as one thrust his long and repulsive head from the water, just ahead of the boat.

CHAPTER XIX

INTO THE WILDS

Had there been any convenient mode of running away Ruth and Alice would certainly have taken advantage of it just then. But they were out in a boat, in the middle of a wide, sluggish stream, and all about them, swimming, diving, coming up and crawling over a long sand-bar, were alligators--alligators on all sides. They were surrounded by them now, and the girls would no more have gotten out of the boat, even if there had been a bridge nearby on which to walk to sh.o.r.e, than they would have dived overboard.

"Oh, isn't it awful!" gasped Ruth, covering her eyes with her hands.

"Can they get at us?" asked Alice, more practically.

"Not if you stay in the boat, I should say," declared Paul. But he was not altogether sure in his own mind.

As for Russ he said nothing. But he was busy focusing the small moving picture camera on the unusual scene. True, he had views of the saurians at the alligator farm near St. Augustine, but this was different. The views he was now getting showed the big, repulsive creatures in their natural haunts.

"This sure is a big piece of luck!" cried Jed Moulton, as he brought his rifle up from the bottom of the boat. "It is a rare bit of luck! I didn't know there was so many 'gators in this neighborhood!"

"Oh, are you going to shoot?" cried Ruth, as she saw the old hunter prepare to take aim.

"Well, that's what I was countin' on, Miss," he replied. "I can't exactly get a 'gator without shootin' him. They won't come when you call 'em, you know. But if it's goin' to distress you, Miss, why of course I can--"

"Oh, no!" she cried hastily. "Of course I don't want to deprive you of making a living. That was selfish of me. Only I was afraid if you shot from the boat it might upset, and if we were thrown into the water with all those horrid things--ugh!"

She could not finish.

"I guess you're right, Miss," a.s.sented Jed. "It will be better not to shoot from the boat, especially as we've got a pretty good load in, and my gun is a heavy one, though it don't recoil such an awful lot. Now we'll take you girls back to the steamer, and then I'll come here and make a bag--an alligator bag, you might say," he added with grim humor.

"Oh, I want to stay and see you shoot!" cried Alice, impulsively.

"Oh, no, Alice!" cried her sister. "Daddy wouldn't like it, you know."

"Well, perhaps not," admitted the younger girl, more readily than her sister had hoped. "Shooting alligators is not exactly nice work, I suppose, however much it needs to be done, for we have to have their skins for leather."

"Then suppose you take us back," suggested Ruth. "I'm sorry to make so much trouble--"

"Not at all!" interrupted Paul. "I think it will be best. But if I can borrow a gun I'm going to get a 'gator myself."