HOW THE BOYS CAUGHT AN ALLIGATOR "Hi! Mark," shouted Frank from his ferry-boat one warm morning in March, "come here a minute.

I've got something to tell you.

Great scheme." "Can't," called Mark--"got to go to mill." "Well, come when you get back." "All right." Mark and Frank had by this time become the best of friends, for each had learned to appreciate the good points of the other, and to value his opinions.

Their general information was as different as possible, and each thought that the other knew just the very things a boy ought to know.

While Mark's knowledge was of books, games, people, and places that seemed to Frank almost like foreign countries, he knew the names of every wild animal, bird, fish, tree, and flower to be found in the surrounding country, and was skilled in all tricks of woodcraft.
Since this boy had first entered the Elmer household, wounded, dirty, and unkempt as a young savage, he had changed so wonderfully for the better that his best friends of a few months back would not have recognized him.