We should of knowed we was over a cave by the smell. You remember the time me and you was fishing on Lochloosy and we couldn’t find the bream on the bed? And we both smells something sweet and marshified? And I backs the boat up and says, “Wait a minute. It’s a bream bed or a ’gator cave, one”? And we fished and fished and never did find no bream? It was a ’gator cave, sure. Ain’t no mistaking it, unless it’s bream. Peculiar—that’s it. A ’gator cave just naturally smells peculiar.

I tell you who you belong to talk to about alligators, and that’s Endy Wilkers. He really knows ’em. He’s still making a living ’gatoring and catching frog legs. He’d rather ’gator hunt than work. If ’twastn’t for the alligators and the bullfrogs, Endy and his family would of gone hungry several times. I was with Endy one time when a fifteen-foot ’gator took us to ride. Me and Endy was on the dock when we seen the ’gator yonder in the lake. He was so big he looked like a rowboat drifting. We jumped in my fishing launch and heads for him. That was Endy—take right out after ’em.

The ’gator sunk. Then he pops up over yonder. Then he sinks again. He done it three times and don’t come up no more. Endy knows then he’s on the bottom. Bottom there was about nine feet. Directly we sees a row of blubbers. That was the ’gator breathing. The blubbers stop, and Endy lets him have the harpoon. Ka-whow! Just back of his hind legs. Endy knowed right where to feel for him.

Then bless Katy, here we go across the lake. We played out all our rope. I starts up the engine. You know we couldn’t catch up with him? That ’gator was going better’n twelve miles a hour. He had to be, to keep the harpoon rope taut with the engine going. I threw it in reverse. It didn’t no more’n slow him down a little. That ’gator was just naturally carrying us off. Sometimes it looked like he didn’t have no more’n three feet of tail in the water. The rest of him was scrambling along on top. I never heerd such a fuss. It sounded like fifteen oxen a-wallering in the water.

He finally headed for a tussock to get shut of whatever ’twas he had, and Endy got the chance to shoot him. Whooey! When I’m riding on the water, I want to know where I’m going and can I stop what’s carrying me.