In great alarm the two alligators went calling up and down the river
bank: "Danger! Danger!" And all their sisters and brothers and mothers
and fathers and uncles and aunts woke up and began running this way and
that with their tails curled up in the air. But the excitement did not
serve to calm their fears. _Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chug!_ The noise was growing
louder every moment; and at last, away off down the stream, they could
see something moving along the surface of the river, leaving a trail of
gray smoke behind it and beating the water on either side to foam:
_Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_
The alligators looked at each other in the greatest astonishment: "What
on earth is that?"
But there was one old alligator, the wisest and most experienced of them
all. He was so old that only two sound teeth were left in his jaws--one
in the upper jaw and one in the lower jaw. Once, also, when he was a
boy, fond of adventure, he had made a trip down the river all the way to
the sea.
"I know what it is," said he. "It's a whale. Whales are big fish, they
shoot water up through their noses, and it falls down on them behind."
At this news, the little alligators began to scream at the top of their
lungs, "It's a whale! It's a whale! It's a whale!" and they made for the
water intending to duck out of sight.
But the big alligator cuffed with his tail a little alligator that was
screaming nearby with his mouth open wide. "Dry up!" said he. "There's
nothing to be afraid of! I know all about whales! Whales are the
afraidest people there are!" And the little alligators stopped their
noise.
But they grew frightened again a moment afterwards. The gray smoke
suddenly turned to an inky black, and the _Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_ was
now so loud that all the alligators took to the water, with only their
eyes and the tips of their noses showing at the surface.
_Cho-ash-h-h!_ _Cho-ash-h-h!_ _Cho-ash-h-h!_ The strange monster came
rapidly up the stream. The alligators saw it go crashing past them,
belching great clouds of smoke from the middle of its back, and
splashing into the water heavily with the big revolving things it had on
either side.
It was a steamer, the first steamer that had ever made its way up the
Parana. _Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_ It seemed to be getting further away
again. _Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chug!_ It had disappeared from view.
One by one, the alligators climbed up out of the water onto the bank
again. They were all quite cross with the old alligator who had told
them wrongly that it was a whale.
"It was not a whale!" they shouted in his ear--for he was rather hard of
hearing. "Well, what was it that just went by?"
The old alligator then explained that it was a steamboat full of fire;
and that the alligators would all die if the boat continued to go up and
down the river.
The other alligators only laughed, however. Why would the alligators die
if the boat kept going up and down the river? It had passed by without
so much as speaking to them! That old alligator didn't really know so
much as he pretended to! And since they were very hungry they all went
fishing in the stream. But alas! There was not a fish to be found! The
steamboat had frightened every single one of them away.
"Well, what did I tell you?" said the old alligator. "You see: we
haven't anything left to eat! All the fish have been frightened away!
However--let's just wait till tomorrow. Perhaps the boat won't come back
again. In that case, the fish will get over their fright and come back
so that we can eat them." But the next day, the steamboat came crashing
by again on its way back down the river, spouting black smoke as it had
done before, and setting the whole river boiling with its paddle wheels.
"Well!" exclaimed the alligators. "What do you think of that? The boat
came yesterday. The boat came today. The boat will come tomorrow. The
fish will stay away; and nothing will come down here at night to drink.
We are done for!"
But an idea occurred to one of the brighter alligators: "Let's dam the
river!" he proposed. "The steamboat won't be able to climb a dam!"
"That's the talk! That's the talk! A dam! A dam! Let's build a dam!" And
the alligators all made for the shore as fast as they could.
They went up into the woods along the bank and began to cut down trees
of the hardest wood they could find--walnut and mahogany, mostly. They
felled more than ten thousand of them altogether, sawing the trunks
through with the kind of saw that alligators have on the tops of their
tails. They dragged the trees down into the water and stood them up
about a yard apart, all the way across the river, driving the pointed
ends deep into the mud and weaving the branches together. No steamboat,
big or little, would ever be able to pass that dam! No one would
frighten the fish away again! They would have a good dinner the
following day and every day! And since it was late at night by the time
the dam was done, they all fell sound asleep on the river bank.
_Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Cho-ash-h-h-h!_
_Cho-ash-h-h-h!_ _Cho-ash-h-h-h!_
They were still asleep, the next day, when the boat came up; but the
alligators barely opened their eyes and then tried to go to sleep again.
What did they care about the boat? It could make all the noise it
wanted, but it would never get by the dam!
And that is what happened. Soon the noise from the boat stopped. The men
who were steering on the bridge took out their spy-glasses and began to
study the strange obstruction that had been thrown up across the river.
Finally a small boat was sent to look into it more closely. Only then
did the alligators get up from where they were sleeping, run down into
the water, and swim out behind the dam, where they lay floating and
looking downstream between the piles. They could not help laughing,
nevertheless, at the joke they had played on the steamboat!
The small boat came up, and the men in it saw how the alligators had
made a dam across the river. They went back to the steamer, but soon
after, came rowing up toward the dam again.
"Hey, you, alligators!"
"What can we do for you?" answered the alligators, sticking their heads
through between the piles in the dam.
"That dam is in our way!" said the men.
"Tell us something we don't know!" answered the alligators.
"But we can't get by!"
"I'll say so!"
"Well, take the old thing out of the way!"
"Nosireesir!"
The men in the boat talked it over for a while and then they called:
"Alligators!"
"What can we do for you?"
"Will you take the dam away?"
"No!"
"No?"
"No!"
"Very well! See you later!"
"The later the better," said the alligators.
The rowboat went back to the steamer, while the alligators, as happy as
could be, clapped their tails as loud as they could on the water. No
boat could ever get by that dam, and drive the fish away again!
But the next day the steamboat returned; and when the alligators looked
at it, they could not say a word from their surprise: it was not the
same boat at all, but a larger one, painted gray like a mouse! How many
steamboats were there, anyway? And this one probably would want to pass
the dam! Well, just let it try! No, sir! No steamboat, little or big,
would ever get through that dam!
"They shall not pass!" said the alligators, each taking up his station
behind the piles in the dam.
The new boat, like the other one, stopped some distance below the dam;
and again a little boat came rowing toward them. This time there were
eight sailors in it, with one officer. The officer shouted:
"Hey, you, alligators!"
"What's the matter?" answered the alligators.
"Going to get that dam out of there?"
"No!"
"No?"
"No!"
"Very well!" said the officer. "In that case, we shall have to shoot it
down!"
"Shoot it up if you want to!" said the alligators.
And the boat returned to the steamer.
But now, this mouse-gray steamboat was not an ordinary steamboat: it was
a warship, with armor plate and terribly powerful guns. The old
alligator who had made the trip to the river mouth suddenly remembered,
and just in time to shout to the other alligators: "Duck for your lives!
Duck! She's going to shoot! Keep down deep under water."
The alligators dived all at the same time, and headed for the shore,
where they halted, keeping all their bodies out of sight except for
their noses and their eyes. A great cloud of flame and smoke burst from
the vessel's side, followed by a deafening report. An immense solid shot
hurtled through the air and struck the dam exactly in the middle. Two or
three tree trunks were cut away into splinters and drifted off
downstream. Another shot, a third, and finally a fourth, each tearing a
great hole in the dam. Finally the piles were entirely destroyed; not a
tree, not a splinter, not a piece of bark, was left; and the alligators,
still sitting with their eyes and noses just out of water, saw the
warship come steaming by and blowing its whistle in derision at them.
Then the alligators came out on the bank and held a council of war. "Our
dam was not strong enough," said they; "we must make a new and much
thicker one."
So they worked again all that afternoon and night, cutting down the very
biggest trees they could find, and making a much better dam than they
had built before. When the gunboat appeared the next day, they were
sleeping soundly and had to hurry to get behind the piles of the dam by
the time the rowboat arrived there.
"Hey, alligators!" called the same officer.
"See who's here again!" said the alligators, jeeringly.
"Get that new dam out of there!"
"Never in the world!"
"Well, we'll blow it up, the way we did the other!"
"Blaze away, and good luck to you!"
You see, the alligators talked so big because they were sure the dam
they had made this time would hold up against the most terrible cannon
balls in the world. And the sailors must have thought so, too; for after
they had fired the first shot a tremendous explosion occurred in the
dam. The gunboat was using shells, which burst among the timbers of the
dam and broke the thickest trees into tiny, tiny bits. A second shell
exploded right near the first, and a third near the second. So the shots
went all along the dam, each tearing away a long strip of it till
nothing, nothing, nothing was left. Again the warship came steaming by,
closer in toward shore on this occasion, so that the sailors could make
fun of the alligators by putting their hands to their mouths and
holloing.
"So that's it!" said the alligators, climbing up out of the water. "We
must all die, because the steamboats will keep coming and going, up and
down, and leaving us not a fish in the world to eat!"
The littlest alligators were already whimpering; for they had had no
dinner for three days; and it was a crowd of very sad alligators that
gathered on the river shore to hear what the old alligator now had to
say.
"We have only one hope left," he began. "We must go and see the
Sturgeon! When I was a boy, I took that trip down to the sea along with
him. He liked the salt water better than I did, and went quite a way out
into the ocean. There he saw a sea fight between two of these boats; and
he brought home a torpedo that had failed to explode. Suppose we go and
ask him to give it to us. It is true the Sturgeon has never liked us
alligators; but I got along with him pretty well myself. He is a good
fellow, at bottom, and surely he will not want to see us all starve!"
The fact was that some years before an alligator had eaten one of the
Sturgeon's favorite grandchildren; and for that reason the Sturgeon had
refused ever since to call on the alligators or receive visits from
them. Nevertheless, the alligators now trouped off in a body to the big
cave under the bank of the river where they knew the Sturgeon stayed,
with his torpedo beside him. There are sturgeons as much as six feet
long, you know, and this one with the torpedo was of that kind.
"Mr. Sturgeon! Mr. Sturgeon!" called the alligators at the entrance of
the cave. No one of them dared go in, you see, on account of that matter
of the sturgeon's grandchild.
"Who is it?" answered the Sturgeon.
"We're the alligators," the latter replied in a chorus.
"I have nothing to do with alligators," grumbled the Sturgeon crossly.
But now the old alligator with the two teeth stepped forward and said:
"Why, hello, Sturgy. Don't you remember Ally, your old friend that took
that trip down the river, when we were boys?"
"Well, well! Where have you been keeping yourself all these years," said
the Sturgeon, surprised and pleased to hear his old friend's voice.
"Sorry I didn't know it was you! How goes it? What can I do for you?"
"We've come to ask you for that torpedo you found, remember? You see,
there's a warship keeps coming up and down our river scaring all the
fish away. She's a whopper, I'll tell you, armor plate, guns, the whole
thing! We made one dam and she knocked it down. We made another and she
blew it up. The fish have all gone away and we haven't had a bite to eat
in near onto a week. Now you give us your torpedo and we'll do the
rest!"
The Sturgeon sat thinking for a long time, scratching his chin with one
of his fins. At last he answered:
"As for the torpedo, all right! You can have it in spite of what you did
to my eldest son's first-born. But there's one trouble: who knows how to
work the thing?"
The alligators were all silent. Not one of them had ever seen a torpedo.
"Well," said the Sturgeon, proudly, "I can see I'll have to go with you
myself. I've lived next to that torpedo a long time. I know all about
torpedoes."
The first task was to bring the torpedo down to the dam. The alligators
got into line, the one behind taking in his mouth the tail of the one in
front. When the line was formed it was fully a quarter of a mile long.
The Sturgeon pushed the torpedo out into the current, and got under it
so as to hold it up near the top of the water on his back. Then he took
the tail of the last alligator in his teeth, and gave the signal to go
ahead. The Sturgeon kept the torpedo afloat, while the alligators towed
him along. In this way they went so fast that a wide wake followed on
after the torpedo; and by the next morning they were back at the place
where the dam was made.
As the little alligators who had stayed at home reported, the warship
had already gone by upstream. But this pleased the others all the more.
Now they would build a new dam, stronger than ever before, and catch the
steamer in a trap, so that it would never get home again.
They worked all that day and all the next night, making a thick, almost
solid dike, with barely enough room between the piles for the alligators
to stick their heads through. They had just finished when the gunboat
came into view.
Again the rowboat approached with the eight men and their officer. The
alligators crowded behind the dam in great excitement, moving their paws
to hold their own with the current; for this time, they were downstream.
"Hey, alligators!" called the officer.
"Well?" answered the alligators.
"Still another dam?"
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again!"
"Get that dam out of there!"
"No, sir!"
"You won't?"
"We won't!"
"Very well! Now you alligators just listen! If you won't be reasonable,
we are going to knock this dam down, too. But to save you the trouble of
building a fourth, we are going to shoot every blessed alligator around
here. Yes, every single last alligator, women and children, big ones,
little ones, fat ones, lean ones, and even that old codger sitting there
with only two teeth left in his jaws!"
The old alligator understood that the officer was trying to insult him
with that reference to his two teeth, and he answered:
"Young man, what you say is true. I have only two teeth left, not
counting one or two others that are broken off. But do you know what
those two teeth are going to eat for dinner?" As he said this the old
alligator opened his mouth wide, wide, wide.
"Well, what are they going to eat?" asked one of the sailors.
"A little dude of a naval officer I see in a boat over there!"--and the
old alligator dived under water and disappeared from view.
Meantime the Sturgeon had brought the torpedo to the very center of the
dam, where four alligators were holding it fast to the river bottom
waiting for orders to bring it up to the top of the water. The other
alligators had gathered along the shore, with their noses and eyes alone
in sight as usual.
The rowboat went back to the ship. When he saw the men climbing aboard,
the Sturgeon went down to his torpedo.
Suddenly there was a loud detonation. The warship had begun firing, and
the first shell struck and exploded in the middle of the dam. A great
gap opened in it.
"Now! Now!" called the Sturgeon sharply, on seeing that there was room
for the torpedo to go through. "Let her go! Let her go!"
As the torpedo came to the surface, the Sturgeon steered it to the
opening in the dam, took aim hurriedly with one eye closed, and pulled
at the trigger of the torpedo with his teeth. The propeller of the
torpedo began to revolve, and it started off upstream toward the
gunboat.
And it was high time. At that instant a second shot exploded in the dam,
tearing away another large section.
From the wake the torpedo left behind it in the water the men on the
vessel saw the danger they were in, but it was too late to do anything
about it. The torpedo struck the ship in the middle, and went off.
You can never guess the terrible noise that torpedo made. It blew the
warship into fifteen thousand million pieces, tossing guns, and
smokestacks, and shells and rowboats--everything, hundreds and hundreds
of yards away.
The alligators all screamed with triumph and made as fast as they could
for the dam. Down through the opening bits of wood came floating, with a
number of sailors swimming as hard as they could for the shore. As the
men passed through, the alligators put their paws to their mouths and
holloed, as the men had done to them three days before. They decided not
to eat a single one of the sailors, though some of them deserved it
without a doubt. Except that when a man dressed in a blue uniform with
gold braid came by, the old alligator jumped into the water off the dam,
and snap! snap! ate him in two mouthfuls.
"Who was that man?" asked an ignorant young alligator, who never learned
his lessons in school and never knew what was going on.
"It's the officer of the boat," answered the Sturgeon. "My old friend,
Ally, said he was going to eat him, and eaten him he has!"
The alligators tore down the rest of the dam, because they knew that no
boats would be coming by that way again.
The Sturgeon, who had quite fallen in love with the gold lace of the
officer, asked that it be given him in payment for the use of his
torpedo. The alligators said he might have it for the trouble of picking
it out of the old alligator's mouth, where it had caught on the two
teeth. They gave him also the officer's belt and sword. The Sturgeon put
the belt on just behind his front fins, and buckled the sword to it.
Thus togged out, he swam up and down for more than an hour in front of
the assembled alligators, who admired his beautiful spotted skin as
something almost as pretty as the coral snake's, and who opened their
mouths wide at the splendor of his uniform. Finally they escorted him in
honor back to his cave under the river bank, thanking him over and over
again, and giving him three cheers as they went off.
When they returned to their usual place they found the fish had already
returned. The next day another steamboat came by; but the alligators did
not care, because the fish were getting used to it by this time and
seemed not to be afraid. Since then the boats have been going back and
forth all the time, carrying oranges. And the alligators open their eyes
when they hear the _chug! chug! chug!_ of a steamboat and laugh at the
thought of how scared they were the first time, and of how they sank the
warship.
But no warship has ever gone up the river since the old alligator ate
the officer.