442 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



With an old alligator hunter I traversed the 

 Big Cypress Swamp in search of game for the 

 camera. Memory has kept for me the date, 

 March 13, 1887, when I crept to the border of a 

 jungle-surrounded pond of a hundred yards in 

 diameter. Its surface was dotted with the eyes 

 or covered with the heads and bodies of scores of 

 alligators. As I close my own eyes to-day my 

 mental picture is vivid of that weird little pond 

 overhung with strange growths and its surface 

 covered with reptilian monsters whose eyes were 

 all turned upon me. It was a wonderful chance 

 and I staged the scene as if for a motion picture. 



I fixed and focussed the camera and taking its 

 bulb in my teeth and my rifle in my hand called 

 on my Cracker guide. Most of the alligators had 

 sunk out of sight, but as the hunter imitated the 

 whine of a puppy they came to the surface and 

 began to swim slowly toward me. When the 

 water was well covered with their heads I sent a 

 bullet through the brain of the nearest one and as 

 he threw his body half out of water I pressed the 

 bulb of the camera with my teeth. The plate 



