"Ha, hah!" roared Samuel Salt, giving the bread board a resounding whack. "Something to stay your stomach, EH?" Samuel himself was as stylishly attired as the King, his three-cornered hat at a dashing angle. Under his arm he had two pairs of tremendously long stilts. "No need for us to get all grubby lowering the boat. We'll wade ashore this time," explained Samuel as Ato's eyes grew round and questioning. "Easy as walking on crutches; just watch me, Mate." Now Samuel, it must be confessed, had been practicing stilting on Elbow Island, so naturally it came easy to him. First he put his stilts over the side, then vaulting the rail, he seized the tops and settled his feet in the cross pieces at one jump and started walking calmly up and down gleefully calling for Ato to follow. It all looked so simple, Ato handed the basket of lunch he had packed to Roger, and seizing his stilts began anxiously feeling around for the river bottom. Satisfied that it was solid, he climbed boldly up on the rail. "That's it! That's it!" applauded Samuel. "Now grab the tops, Mate, and start coming." "Chee tree--tee--hee--!" screeched the monkeys derisively as Ato clung precariously to the rail with one hand and maneuvered his stilts with the other. By some miracle of balance the fat King actually managed to mount and hold on to his perilous walking sticks. Then with a long quivering breath he heaved one forward. He was about to take another step when a desperate scream from Roger almost caused him to topple over backwards. "'Gators!" croaked the Read Bird, beating his wings together violently. "Watch out for those 'gators." "Why bother him with gaiters at a time like this? They look perfectly all right to me." Samuel Salt frowned up at Roger. "Not _his_ gaiters, river 'gators, alligators, CROCODILES!" wailed Roger, beginning to fly in agonized circles. "Crocodiles and WORSE." Samuel, eyeing what he had supposed to be a pile of rotten logs on the river bank, saw dozens of the slimy saurians slide into the water and come savagely toward them. "Back to the ship! Back to the ship!" babbled the Read Bird, clutching Ato's collar with a frantic claw. But the King was too frightened to move. The sight of the bleary-eyed river monsters made him tremble so violently his stilts twittered and swayed like trees in a hurricane. He could not for the life of him take a step in either direction. With a loud cry Samuel started to help him, but a crocodile reached Ato first. Its jaws closed with a vicious snap on the King's left stilt and with a heart-rending shriek Ato plunged into the slimy river.