Howsomdever, directly it widened out, I managed to paddle into the back water and landed there.

Well, gents, would you believe me, if there wasn't two big allygaters sitting there with their mouths open ready to swallow me, canoe and all, when I came to shore." "No, Jack, I'm afraid we can't believe that.

We would if we could, you know, but alligators are not fond of such cold weather as you'd been having, nor do they frequent the seashore." "Ah, but this, you see, was a straits, Master Ruthven, just a narrow straits, and I expect the creatures took it for a river." "No, no, Jack, we can't swallow the alligators, any more than they could swallow you and your canoe." "Well," the sailor said with a sigh, "I won't say no more about the allygaters.

I can't rightly recall when they came into the story.
Howsomdever, I landed, you can believe that, you know." "Oh yes, we can quite believe, Jack, that, if you were there, in that canoe, in that back water, with the land close ahead, you did land." The sailor looked searchingly at Ruthven and then continued: "I hauled the canoe up and hid it in some bushes, and it were well I did, for a short time afterwards a great--" and he paused.

"Does the hippypotybus live in them ere waters, young gents ?" "He does not, Jack," Ruthven said.
"Then it's clear," the sailor said, "that it wasn't a hippypotybus.