50 THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 



mals across this lowland that was perhaps twelve feet wide 

 and four feet deep, and it was through this canal that the 

 cattle were obliged to swim this day. As I stood talking 

 to the owner of the cattle, Emile Thibodaux, on the side of 

 this water-road, suddenly the leading cattle stopped and 

 began to flounder trying to get out onto the marsh, then 

 turned and started swimming back the way they had come. 

 The herd was greatly excited and milled about considerably, 

 and at last all of them turned back. About two hundred 

 yards from where we stood we could see a great commotion 

 in the water, and thought at first that several animals had 

 piled on top of each other and were bogged in the soft 

 ground bordering the canal, as there was a great splashing 

 and floundering in the water. Suddenly the tail of a large 

 alligator went up high in the air, we knew then the 

 reason for the commotion was an attack on the cattle by 

 an alligator. I being on foot hurried across the boggy 

 ground to the scene of the encounter, and as I neared the 

 spot I could see the alligator rolling and twisting in its en- 

 deavor to keep a cow it had seized under the water. When 

 I finally got to the animals the alligator had killed the cow 

 and had it firmly grasped by the thigh. I shot the alligator 

 with a load of number ten shot at a distance of about six 

 feet, killing it instantly. A number of the cattle-men hav- 

 ing come up, we put a rope around its neck and pulled him 

 out on the bank. He measured ten feet, ten inches, and 

 had a piece, perhaps two and a half to three feet long, 

 missing from its tail. We pulled the cow out and found it 

 had been killed by drowning, and that the alligator had dis- 

 located its thigh, and its teeth had torn through skin and 

 flesh to the bone. During this encounter, the alligator 

 had thrown off such a quantity of musk that the water and 

 bank was strongly scented with it. The cattle-men tried 

 several times to force the herd past this spot in the water- 

 road, but it was useless, as they would not pass, and the 

 drive ended in failure that day. I was told later, that the 



