174 MARTIN RATTLER.

percolating through the old roof, descended rather
copiously on the mud floor. In a few minutes there
was a heaving of the ground under their feet !

“QOchone!” cried Barney, taking his pipe out of
his mouth and looking down with a disturbed expres-
sion, “ there’s an arthquake, I do belave.”

For a few seconds there was a dead silence.

“ Nonsense,” whispered Martin uneasily.

“Ts dramin’ I must have been,” sighed Barney,
resuming his pipe.

Again the ground heaved and cracked, and Martin
and the old trader had just time to spring to their
feet when the mud floor of the hut burst upwards and
a huge, dried-up-looking alligator crawled forth, as if
from the bowels of the earth! It glanced up at
Barney, opened its tremendous jaws, and made as if
it would run at the terrified old trader; then, ob-
serving the doorway, it waddled out and, trundling
down the bank, plunged into the river and disap-
peared.

Barney could find no words to express his feelings,
but continued to gaze with an unbelieving expression
down into the hole out of which the monster had
come, and in which it had buried itself many weeks
before, when the whole country was covered with soft
mud. At that time it had probably regarded the