Adventure Magazine Cover, February 3, 1921 — page 164: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

158 nose poked out through an aperture, where apparently it had jammed and its owner could get no farther. WITH the utmost care Goomasaka bored one of her front teeth into the shell of this egg till it cracked, and instantly lo—as it were a conjuring trick—out shot a perfect young alligator, like his mother to a T, except as to his shorter snout, bulging baby eyes and his black-banded uniform. But that was not the wonder. It was his fully-formed alligator character func- tioning, his pugnacious, precocious, com- plete adequateness that made one gasp. _ He was all there. He was it—the living ‘gator, in a breath. He dived into the water, dashed round and about, the remains of his shell hanging on behind, snapped like a flash of light at a water-beetle and was still floating, complete, in full working- order, delivered in one.breath ‘‘ready for the road,” so to speak. To complete the miracle it may be men- tioned that though he was only some seven inches long, he grew another whole inch in the next few hours. And if anything is wanted after that, it may be mentioned that for twenty-five hours before Gooma- saka had liberated him he had remained in that half-pipped condition within the egg, hopeless, helpless and apparently life- less, and would have died thus without properly living, if his mother had not come and reprieved him. Thus your ’gator- ling. Three ’gatorlings who had lustily pipped ‘ for themselves—they will sometimes, but it is likely to be atlong and a dangerous job—now scuttled down to the. water and dived in; and their brother met ’em with snaps as they arrived. Goomasaka then rolled out two yellow eggs which never would be any use. Then three pinkish ones—all with convoluted shells these, for they vary—which, however, were not, pipped and from which no absurd squeaking grunts emanated, and these she rolled back again as one who handles pearls of priceless worth. And thus, egg by egg, that weird armored reptile that seemed to have been a left- over from the dim past sorted over care- fully the whole of her clutch; liberating here where a pipped shell and frantic nasal expostulations from within showed Adventure that her scientific surgical attentions were needed; rolling back there where the shell showed the egg not yet ready, guiding elsewhere where ’gatorlings had broken out. Then finally she covered all the un- hatched eggs over again as they had been and returned to the water to be promptly surrounded by a little fleet of fourteen ’gatorlings, and then almost as promptly to hurl herself—scattering said ’gatorlings much to their little horror right and left— to the other side of the creek with a swirl that lapped the banks. Her jaws could be heard distinctly snapping like the clash of steel traps, once; twice, and again; a ter- rific commotion followed; water, débris and leaves~flew into the air together. Goomasaka’s blood-freezing hiss filled the forest silence; another hiss followed, long-drawn and sibilant. There was a glimpse of slashing jaws and crashing plated tail and writhing, shining green coils, and all sank under the water together. The surface boiled and was still again, and that was all. Some snake, a big yellow tail, in fact— and Goomasaka, as we know, “owed him one’’—whether attracted by the prospect of a free lunch of newly hatched ’gatorling or whether by chance, had come sliding down to the creek while Goomasaka was busy with her back turned. His glinting coils had flashed to her quick reptilian eyes as she moved round, and—well, she badly needed a meal without having to leave the nest far. That was that. fiw) NEXT day Goomasaka returned to wat) her bake-oven of a nursery and the dav after, listening for the pip- squeak voices, uncovering the eggs and cracking the egg-shells quickly, till at last there were only the .addied yellow eggs left—five in number. Then Goomasaka covered up her nest no more. She swam away, surrounded by her fleet of twenty ’gatorlings, away to lie out in the hot shallows, to chase fish at the foot of the waterfalls, to gobble up ducks as they swam the pools and to be a thom in the sides of the snakes all up and down the still mysterious, stifling reaches. But only twenty ‘gatorlings you ask? Where were the rest? Oh, they had be- come too complete and precocious and had Oe swum away on their own tiny hook, to Gomichdooks (C©@)