After a consultation, the two boys ran across the clearing to a switch-cane jungle and cut two long cane poles. Returning with these, they began to prod and torment the alligator, thrusting the poles into his mouth when he opened it; and when he no longer would let them look at his tongue, they still pursued their medical examination by punching him in every place where they thought he might have a particularly tender spot. This roused him to another performance, a fury of struggle in which he fought and roared and barked and clawed at the rope, and thrashed with his tail, and chased the two boys up a tree until his activities abated. All day long they tormented the alligator, exhausting every resource in their efforts to get him, as they expressed it, “to cut up some more.” But after five or six hours there was no more fight in him. When the alligator showed plainly that he had made positively his last appearance as an entertainer, the boys decided it was time to start for home. “How we gwine git our rope back?” Little Bit asked. “Let that old sucker keep his old rope. I don’t want it,” Org said, wiping the sweat from his face on the sleeve of his shirt and sitting down in utter weariness. “Marse Tom will bust us ef we leaves dat rope out in dese here woods,” Little Bit warned him. “Ropes comes high in de store ef you got to pay fer ’em.” “I’ll tell Uncle Tom where it is, and let him come after it when he wants it,” Org replied. “You better not let dat white man know we been out here monkeyin’ wid a alligator,” Little Bit said. “He’ll sell our mule an’ put me in jail an’ flay de hide offen you.” “That’s so,” Org agreed. “Well, the old alligator is nearly dead. Let’s tie our end of the rope to the saddle and make old Jinx drag the alligator up to the house. Then when he dies we can get the rope off him.” Little Bit agreed to this, and it was not hard to do. They had whipped the alligator until there was no more fight in him, and wearied him until there was not more strength to fight. Their hardest work was untwisting the rope, for as they got nearer to the alligator they had to pry the rope from around the roots and snags with a pole. They never got the courage to get close to those jaws which had snapped at them so terribly. Jinx did not object to a little light hauling when a white boy walked on one side and a black boy on the other, acting as escort of honor. The alligator was easily dragged over the marsh-grass and along the animal trails toward the town. Although dragged for over three miles, he at no time showed resistance or attempted to “cut up.” In the rear of the Gaitskill stables there was a large pig-pen, to which admittance was gained by a gate. Org led the mule in such a way that the alligator faced the gate. Then he led the mule around to the other side of the pen, led him forward, and thus dragged the alligator through the open gate.