“Theah was a pen on one side of the island that I hadn’t looked in because I thought it meant pigs. When I got to thinkin’, I knew it wasn’t pigs. So I went to have a look. Did you evah heah of an alligatah twenty feet long?” asked Tom.

“I don’t know anything about ’em,” responded Bob. “But I thought fourteen feet was pretty fair for size.”

Tom shook his head, and went on.

“That pen was round an’ about fo’ty feet across. Before I got to it, I smelt musk, an’ I knew that meant alligatah. The pen was made o’ big pine posts set in the ground, and I could just peek ovah it. At first, I didn’t see anything in it, but foah posts right in the middle about six feet high, I reckon. On these posts, was a kind o’ little house like a dove cote—without sides to it—and a roof o’ palmetto leaves. That’s wheah it was.”

“Where what was?” broke in the spellbound Bob.
 
“That Spanish helmet,” answered Tom proudly. “O’ course, I couldn’t see very well, but I’ve seen pictuahs o’ them, and you can’t mistake ’em—round like a boilin’ pot with holes fo’ the eyes and a thing that drops down ovah the mouth.”

“Didn’t you examine it?” interrupted romantic Bob. “That very bit of armor may have been worn by one of De Soto’s soldiers. Some gallant knight—”

“Did I examine it?” repeated Tom. “Listen. The bottom o’ that pen was smooth and hard as a floor. Opposite wheah I stood theah was a runway, just like the big pen, extendin’ right down to the canal. ‘That’s the royal entrance fo’ the king o’ the alligatahs, the God o’ the Secret City o’ the Seminoles,’ I said to myself. ‘He must be on a vacation to-day,’ I says. So I began makin’ snap shots o’ his temple or palace. Then I had a sudden, creepy feelin’. An’ at the same time, I knew the musk I had been smellin’ seemed mighty close. I had a kind o’ hunch to look ovah the fence. Before I finished that look, I was back up among the shacks with my hair a rattlin’. That old booger was a layin’ just undah the fence, two feet o’ where I stood.”
 
Bob shivered and looked around. They were yet in alligator land.

“I began to think I’d leave,” went on Tom, attempting to smile. “I couldn’t get the helmet, an’ theah wasn’t a thing on the shacks worth carryin’ away. So I took a few moah pictuahs an’ one bow and a bundle o’ arrows an’ stahted fo’ my boat. Well,” and he looked up as if Bob had guessed, “it was gone. Theah I was. Somehow I didn’t just realize what it all meant, at first. I kind o’ thought theah was some way out. But in five minutes, I found I was as completely stranded as if I had been on a real island miles at sea.

“You’d come back, o’ course. But yo’ couldn’t get down in that ‘well’ with the Anclote if yo’ knew wheah I was. I had twenty minutes left before yo’ were due at the garden hill. I want to say I did some tall thinkin’. If I could cross the canal, but what then? Theah wasn’t a foot o’ solid land this side o’ wheah you were to pick me up. I couldn’t wade the canal. I found that out polein’ up. Besides, theah were too many things in the watah to make it worth while.

“Ten minutes went by.” Bob sighed sympathetically. “Then I saw that tree. I don’t know[262] how I came to think of it. But the minute I did, I realized it was the only thing I could do. I didn’t know whethah I had the nerve, but I decided I’d go ahead ’til I weakened. So I took out my films, rolled ’em tight in my handkerchief and stuck ’em inside my shirt. Then I made a present o’ the camera and my coat, revolver and shoes to the runaway citizens, an’—”

“So you could climb?” suggested Bob.

“So I could swim,” explained ............