Page:Outdoor Girls in Florida.djvu/159

Rh 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?"