It was a very big river in a region of South America that had never been
visited by white men; and in it lived many, many alligators--perhaps a
hundred, perhaps a thousand. For dinner they ate fish, which they caught
in the stream, and for supper they ate deer and other animals that came
down to the water side to drink. On hot afternoons in summer they
stretched out and sunned themselves on the bank. But they liked nights
when the moon was shining best of all. Then they swam out into the river
and sported and played, lashing the water to foam with their tails,
while the spray ran off their beautiful skins in all the colors of the
rainbow.
These alligators had lived quite happy lives for a long, long time. But
at last one afternoon, when they were all sleeping on the sand, snoring
and snoring, one alligator woke up and cocked his ears--the way
alligators cock their ears. He listened and listened, and, to be sure,
faintly, and from a great distance, came a sound: _Chug!_ _Chug!_
_Chug!_
"Hey!" the alligator called to the alligator sleeping next to him, "Hey!
Wake up! Danger!"
"Danger of what?" asked the other, opening his eyes sleepily, and
getting up.
"I don't know!" replied the first alligator.
"That's a noise I never heard before. Listen!"