Adventure Series No. 5
B ALLIGATOR Cl
Hunter Succeeds in Capturing Saurian After It
Has Him Pinned Down With One of His Arms
in Its Mouth
By WILLIAM HORNE
\I T RESTLING wirh bears may have
* ’ been considered a very thrilling and
interesting sport half a century ago. but
now a far more dangerous and unique
game comes to us from the Florida Ever
glades. that tropical jungleland of wil
derness and beauty.
This odd pastime is called “Wrestling
With Alligators," and it is just what the
name implies.
Mike son of Chief Osceola, of the
Seminoles, Is the originator, and out at
the little Indian village on -the outskirts
of Miami in the edge oi the ’Glades he
gives daily exhibitions in this thrilling
sport.
If lett unmolested the alligator is a
docile and harmless creature, and will
hastily retreat at the first approach of
man But he can be a rather bad fel
low when wounded, cornered or teased,
and will fight like a demon w'ith power
ful tail and crushing jaws
Florida s Everglades still abound with
these saurians. anu many lives and limbs
have been lost by natives who make it
a business oi hunting them for a living.
“But don’t you tame a ’gator before
you wrestle with him?’ a spectator re
cently asked Mike during an exhibition.
“Huh.’’ Mike answered disdainfully.
“You can t tame a gator. He’s got sense,
but it s sense like the possum You
think he’s used to you and wouldn’t bite
you for the world, when suddenly—
smack, he's snapped off your arm or
your leg.
“Did you ever hear about the man
who got hold of a rattlesnake's head
and couldn’t turn it loose? Well. I got
hold of a big bull gator once, and I
couldn't turn him loose ”
On Trail ot Gator
IT happened during one night while
Mike was or, a gator hunt in the
'Glades He was alone in his small,
flat-bottomed bateau, and his sturdy
paddle thrusts carried him steadily down
the canai and deeper into the swamp
. “I knew right ffhere I wanted to go.’
he relates, “to get a fair-sized gator for
my collection, and I paddled on down
the canai. ft was quiet, and not a breeze
stirred the moss that hung from the
oak limbs nor rustled the palm fronds
that lined the canal on either side
“Now and then 1 would pass an open
prairie. Thousands of frogs serenaded
in a thousand different voices, but as
the noise of my boat rubbing through
the grass reached them, they shut up
like clams
“It was all like magic, and when I
pass'd they would all begin their sing
ing again
“Tke moon was very bright and 1
could see well enough in the open, but
suddenly the canal seemed to end up
right into a thick, black wall of trees
But I knew it went on in. and as I ap
proached the noise of the frogs was far
oehind, and in the shadows of the trees
there was a dead silence ahead oi me
“I knew by this silence that gators
prowled in the shallows at their nightly
feeding.”
It was eerie ano ghostly beneath
ihose trees Trailing beards of Spanish
moss hung in the silent gloom like lonely
sentinels; deep shadows cast reflections
where moonbeams broke through the
thick foliage so close to the dark, saf
fron-tiued water.
Mike’s eyes slowly grew accustomed to
the thicker gloom beneath the trees as
his bateau slid noiselessly along, and he
was very careful *ot to scrape his paddle
on the bateau side, for an alien sound
carries far on the still air in the deep
swamps.
Sometimes there came the hoarse
squawking of a sandhill crane from a
few yards off the canal, and Mike knew
that some foraging saurian had man
aged to creep up on one of the giant
birds as it slept on stilt-like legs, and
dragged it down to its lair.
Twisting mangrove roots lined the
canal on either side in grotesque shapes;
thorn-spiked bamboo vines trailed like
liana from the tangled roof overhead.
But Mike s had been a life in the wil
derness of the Everglades; he knew every
twist of the winding canals and ’gator
runs that seemed to vanish so mysteri
ously in the jungle’s depths, and certain
towering cypress or gnarled mangroves
conveyed a silent message to him as do
our street signs on corner lamp posts.
He was completely at home, where an
outsider would have been hopelessly lost.
Mike had already abandoned his pad
dle, for he didn’t want any noise to re
veal his stealthy approach. He pro
pelled his small craft now by pulling
along from root to jutting root, and sud
denly fifty feet ahead in a patch of
moonlight that broke through the foliage
he saw a long, slowly moving form.
“It was one of the larges* ’gators I
had ever seen,” he says, “and he was
just crawling out of the water up onto
a thick clump of grass. His tail was
toward me, and as there was no breeze
to take my scent to him, I knew I had
a good chance to bag him, so I tied my
boat to a root, picked up my rope and
stepped easily into the water.
“As I left the boat I was very careful
not to lift my feet clear of the knee
deep water, for the dripping would have
warned him. Have you ever tried to
stalk a 'gator? No? Then you do not
know what a slow job that is. I al-
Just as Mike pried the jaws
of the giant open to place a
stick therein, it flopped sud
denly, pinning him underneath
with one of his arms caught
between the savage teeth.
ways say that I am very lucky when
I do it, and I did it this time.
“Pretty soon I was standing on a
clump of roots ten feet from the canal
out in the edge of the prairie. I had
my rope, and I also had a short, green,
tough stick about a foot long.
“Suddenly, whilt I was standing there
ready to jump down on him, these roots
under me broke with a loud cracking
sound, and my 'gator made a quick, jerk
ing move toward the canal.
“And then I jumped right quick, like
that ” (Mike snapped his brown,
muscular fingers) “right onto his back
and locked my left arm tight around his
neck.
“I squeezed with all my strength, and
his mouth flew open, and I stuck the
stick in endwise and propped it there.
But just when I thought everything was
going fine and I got a good half-hitch
with my rope on both front feet the
devil flopped over right on top of me and
doubled up like a big jackknife.
Trapped Under ’Gator
<<nnHERE I was under the bottom with
my breath about mashed out, and
swallowing a lot of mud and water, and
couldn't turn him loose. If I had he'd
have broken me half in two with his tail,
and it seemed like if I hung on much
longer I'd drown or be mashed flat on
the roots.
“He shut his jaws down on my arm,
and his teeth met almost against the
arm bones. It made me sick, and I just
lay there with my arm in his mouth, and
him starting to crawl ofl and half drag
ging me.
“But pretty soon I realized what it
would mean if I fainted. I yelled as
loud as I could and put my right arm
around his neck and choked with every
bit of the strength left in me.
“I tried to choke him to death, but I
guess that would be a pretty hard job
to do—choke a 'gator to death. Any
way, he opened his mouth and let go
of my arm. I turned him a-loose right
quick. He jackknifed again and his tail
caught the side ot my head and sent
me fifteen feet into the canal.
“I scrambled up somehow, and stood
looking at him as he lay there thrash
ing about in the shallow’ water. My arm
was badly torn and blood was dripping
into the water at my feet. It made me
sick and dizzy, but I knew if I didn't do
something right quick I’d lose my big
’gator sure enough, so I went back over
to him, got hold of the end of the rope
and looped it around a heavy mangrove
root sticking out of the water.
“I went home, then. It took me nearly
all night to get there. I went straight
to a doctor and had my arm bandaged.
During the day I took a friend with me
and went after my ’gator. There he
was, still tied to the root, and full of
fight.
“But we tied him up good and towed
him back home with us. That’s him
out there now I’m going to wrestle next.”
Still Vicious
TTE waved a brown arm toward a shal
low pool at the other end of the
wire lnclosure beneath some twisted
palms, and a long, horny snout poked
out over the edge.
“Has he tried to bite off your arm
any more?" somebody in the crowd
asked.
“Yeah,” Mike answered with a wry
grin, “and the bad part is, I can’t
even prop his mouth open any more.
My customers like to get a thrill, and
they claim there’s no thrill if he doesn’t
have a chance to bite me. So I have
to please my cash customers, don’t I?”