Pishing in Nortlt- Carolina. 47 



wanted to do so. I jumped upon the bow thwart 

 and with rod turned him to the middle thwart 

 man, who hit him with a gun and passed him to 

 the man who had taken his station already high 

 up on the stern seat and he returned the 'gator 

 with a vicious blow of his paddle. Thus" we had 

 it for a few very long minutes, until the var- 

 mint concluded to die again. There was no 

 time to think about shooting — the butt of the 

 gun was more handy. Had the boat sunk we 

 would very shortly have been in Jerusalem, be- 

 cause the best swimmer could not have made 

 headway through the morass of weeds which for 

 hundreds of yards lined both banks of the 

 stream. We carried that alligator home all 

 right, but we never gave him up for dead ; and 

 considered ourselves somewhat of heroes, since 

 had the battle gone against us, three lives would 

 have been lost, equal to an average Spanish- 

 American war battle in casualty, although less 

 costly. 



I did not sufficiently enjoy that fishing trip 

 to repeat it. 



But the bass fishing in Morton's pond is prob- 



