"It would be better, I think, if we were in a more sheltered position before it begins.

Ha! there it comes though, in earnest." A smart shower began to fall as he spoke, and, percolating through the old roof, descended rather copiously on the mud floor.

In a few minutes there was a heaving of the ground under their feet! "Ochone!" cried Barney, taking his pipe out of his mouth and looking down with a disturbed expression, "there's an arthquake, I do belave." For a few seconds there was a dead silence.
"Nonsense," whispered Martin uneasily.
"It's dramin' I must have been," sighed Barney, resuming his pipe.
Again the ground heaved and cracked, and Martin and the old trader had just time to spring to their feet when the mud floor of the hut burst upwards and a huge dried-up-looking alligator crawled forth, as if from the bowels of the earth! It glanced up at Barney; opened its tremendous jaws, and made as if it would run at the terrified old trader; then, observing the doorway, it waddled out, and, trundling down the bank, plunged into the river and disappeared.
Barney could find no words to express his feelings, but continued to gaze with an unbelieving expression down into the hole out of which the monster had come, and in which it had buried itself many weeks before, when the whole country was covered with soft mud.

At that time it had probably regarded the shelter of the inundated hut as of some advantage, and had lain down to repose.

The water retiring had left it there buried, and--as we have already mentioned in reference to alligators--when the first shower of the rainy season fell it was led by instinct to burst its earthy prison, and seek its native element.
Before Barney or his companions could recover from their surprise, they had other and more urgent matters to think about.