He came toward me cautiously, circling slowly about. There was nothing to do but to get an arrow in readiness, and then to wait, but I shuddered to think of a fight with such a powerful monster. The creature, I am convinced, thought me a larger one of the monkeys on which his kind were fond of dining. He presently headed straight for the log. Knowing he would dive in a moment I shot at him quickly. The arrow struck him just beneath the eye. It broke and glanced from the tough wet skin, but a splinter actually struck in his eye-ball and ruined his sight on that side of his head. He sank like a thing of iron. A second later the end of the log went heaving up and I was thrown violently off into the lake. The log came down with a force that beat up a fountain of spray. I was struck on the foot by the half-blinded reptile as I struggled to get back to my place and out of his way. He began furiously to lash the water as he rammed about in a circle. Rising to the surface like a small living island, he turned upon me again and came ahead with all his speed, making me think of a deadly torpedo. There was no time for arrow or bow, and the latter was gone again in the bargain, but it took me only half a second to rip out that ever-needed knife. Over we went, more abruptly than before, the water churning and boiling up in foam about my ears. He had calculated poorly and now he closed his awful jaws upon the jagged end of the log, not a foot from my shoulder. I jabbed at him frantically—stabbing at his other eye which suddenly popped fairly out of its socket as I pried and gouged with the end of the blade. The beast raised a snorting noise at this, which made me ill with fear. With the power of a whale and the ferocity of a shark he whipped the water into froth and snapped his jaws in every direction. He was head on, side on and tail on, alternately, feeling for me and grinding pieces out of the log whenever he found it. He clawed me once and knocked me clean over the log with his tail a moment later. I stabbed at him wildly, but with no effect, a dozen times. I was nearly drowned and the creature seemed to be everywhere at once. Had he been able to see me, my life could not have been saved by any chance, in such a whirlpool of wrathful attacking. I was nearly blinded by the spray which flew from the waves. The log, which was pitching madly, with a force only second to the creature’s own, arose abruptly from a plunge and, like a lever, pried the alligator fairly over on his back and threw me almost upon him. I stabbed him twice in the belly, the last blow tearing a deep, wide hole, as he rolled to right himself, and then to my great astonishment he dived like a porpoise. I lost not a second in getting on top of the log. But the water grew calm and a deep red dye came floating up, to weave a strange device in the ripples.