The game is beginning to show itself." And off he ran for the rifle.
I didn't know that Rectus had such a bloodthirsty style of mind; but there were a good many things about him that I didn't know.

When he came back, he loaded the rifle, which was a little breech-loader, and began eagerly looking about for game.
Corny had been on the upper deck; but in a minute or two she came running out to us.
"Oh! do you know," she called out, "that there are alligators in this river?
Do you think they could crawl up into the boat?
We go awfully near shore sometimes.

They sleep on shore.

I do hope I'll see one soon." "Well, keep a sharp look-out, and perhaps you may," said I.
She sat down on a box near the edge of the deck, and peered into the water and along the shore as if she had been sent there to watch for breakers ahead.

Every now and then she screamed out: "There's one! There! There! There!" But it was generally a log, or a reflection, or something else that was not an alligator.
Of course we were very near both shores at all times, for the river is so narrow that a small boy could throw a ball over it; but occasionally the deeper part of the channel flowed so near one shore that we ran right up close to the trees, and the branches flapped up against the people on the little forward deck, making the ladies, especially the lady belonging to the yellow-legged party, crouch and scream as if some wood-demon had stuck a hand into the boat and made a grab for their bonnets.
This commotion every now and then, and the almost continual reports from the guns on board, and Corny's screams when she thought she saw an alligator, made the scene quite lively.
Rectus and I took a turn every half-hour at the rifle.