"What—what are we going to do?" gasped Grace. She, as Betty said afterward, seemed always to be the first to ask questions that were hard to answer in an emergency. "They—they may attack us!"

"Why can\'t you say something less—less scary?" demanded Mollie who, after the first gasp of fright, had come forward to stand beside Betty. Amy had already shrunk to a place in the rear near Grace. It seemed to be always thus, with Betty and Mollie facing the immediate danger, and Grace and Amy needing protection.

Not that they were not brave when occasion demanded it. They would not have been outdoor girls else, but somehow the first fear of something menacing sent Amy and Grace scurrying to the rear, whence it needed considerable persuasion to bring them to the van again.

"They—they don\'t seem to see us," ventured[148] Amy, after a few tense seconds, during which the four had stared at the alligators.

"They won\'t see you and Grace at all, if you stay behind us," said Mollie a bit sharply. "There\'s no present danger, as far as I can see. Why don\'t you come out and help Betty and me throw stones at them?"

"Oh, you\'re never going to do that!" gasped Grace. "Why that would—make them mad!"

"Well," answered Betty, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don\'t know that a mad alligator is any worse than any other kind. They\'re all mad, as far as I\'m concerned, and throwing stones at them can\'t make them any worse. I rather side with Mollie. We may drive them away."

"Yes, and it may drive them toward us," cried Amy. "Please don\'t!"

"We won\'t coax them this way if we can help it," said Betty. "You may be sure of that. But we must do something. We can\'t stay out on this almost-island much longer. We\'ll have to eat, and——"

"Where\'s Tom?" suddenly asked Grace. "He ought to be able to rescue us. He knows all about alligators—and—and such things."

"Yes, maybe he can charm them away," suggested Mollie half-sarcastically. "But I don\'t see him."[149]

The girls looked toward where they had left their escort setting the "table" on the grass. They had a glimpse of the white cloth, and the various things upon it, but Tom was not in sight.

"Maybe—maybe an alligator ate him!" said Grace. She was half-crying now.

"Don\'t be silly!" directed Betty in a stern tone. It was sometimes necessary to be severe with Grace when she was likely to give way to her feelings. But in this case Betty did not want to be too much so, for she realized all that her chum had suffered in the disappearance of her brother.

The two big alligators, and they were exceptionally large, so the girls said afterward, seemed to have taken permanent possession of the narrow neck of land that connected the peninsula with the main shore. The girls were practically prisoners on what, with a rise of the river, would be an island.

"They don\'t seem to be coming after us," remarked Mollie looking about for some stones, or anything else, to use as a weapon of offense.

"No, they\'re just waiting their time," said Amy, who was still clinging to Grace. "When they get ready they\'ll crawl out here and—and—what is it alligators do to you, anyhow—charm you?"[150]

"You\'re thinking of snakes," said Betty, narrowly watching the saurians. "Alligators knock you down with their tails, I understand, sort of stun you, and——"

"Spare us the horrible details," interrupted Mollie, and she drawled it out in such a funny way that the others laughed.

The alligators evinced no intention of coming forward. They were moving about, seeming to scoop out resting places in the hot sand, on which the sun poured fierce rays. Then, having made themselves comfortable, stretched out at full length, the creatures sunned themselves.

The girls were getting uncomfortable now, for they were in an exposed position, and the day was warm. There was very little shade on ............