Deliberately, at scarce twenty feet, Ken shot the remaining four shells into the crocodile. The bullets tore through his horny hide, and blood and muddy water spouted up. George and Pepe and Hal yelled, and Ken kept time with them. The terrible lashing tail swung back and forth almost too swiftly for the eye to catch. A deluge of mud and water descended upon the boys, bespattering, blinding them and weighing down the boat. They jumped out upon the bank to escape it. They ran to and fro in aimless excitement. Ken still clutched the rifle, but he had no shells for it. George was absurd enough to fling a stone into the blood-tinged cloud of muddy froth and spray that hid the threshing leviathan. Presently the commotion subsided enough for them to see the great crocodile lying half on his back, with belly all torn and bloody and huge claw-like hands pawing the air. He was edging, slipping off into deeper water. “He’ll get away--he’ll get away!” cried Hal. “What’ll we do?” Ken racked his brains. “Pepe, get your lasso--rope him--rope him! Hurry! he’s slipping!” yelled George. Pepe snatched up his lariat, and, without waiting to coil it, cast the loop. He caught one of the flippers and hauled tight on it just as the crocodile slipped out of sight off the muddy ledge. The others ran to the boat, and, grasping hold of the lasso with Pepe, squared away and began to pull. Plain it was that the crocodile was not coming up so easily. They could not budge him. “Hang on, boys!” Ken shouted. “It’s a tug-of-war.” The lasso was suddenly jerked out with a kind of twang. Crash! went Pepe and Hal into the bottom of the boat. Ken went sprawling into the mud, and George, who had the last hold, went to his knees, but valiantly clung to the slipping rope. Bounding up, Ken grasped it from him and wound it round the sharp nose of the bowsprit. “Get in--hustle!” he called, falling aboard. “You’re always saying it’s coming to us. Here’s where!” George had hardly got into the boat when the crocodile pulled it off shore, and away it went, sailing down-stream. “Whoop! All aboard for Panuco!” yelled Hal. “Now, Pepe, you don’t need to row any more--we’ve a water-horse,” Ken added. But Pepe did not enter into the spirit of the occasion. He kept calling on the saints and crying, “Mucho malo.” George and Ken and Hal, however, were hilarious. They had not yet had experience enough to know crocodiles. Faster and faster they went. The water began to surge away from the bow and leave a gurgling wake behind the stern. Soon the boat reached the middle of the river where the water was deepest, and the lasso went almost straight down. Ken felt the stern of the boat gradually lifted, and then, in alarm, he saw the front end sinking in the water. The crocodile was hauling the bow under. “Pepe--your machete--cut the lasso!” he ordered, sharply. George had to repeat the order. Wildly Pepe searched under the seat and along the gunwales. He could not find the _machete_.