“It’s cruel!” cried Joe.

“Yes, but the Indians don’t mean it so,” the guide went on.  “They are really too lazy to do anything else.  If some one told them it was work to keep the lizards as they do, instead of just shutting them up in a box to stay until they were needed to be killed for food, they’d stop this practice.  They’d do anything to get out of work; but this plan seems to them to be the easiest, so they keep it up.”

“Is iguana really good eating?” asked Joe.

“Yes, it tastes like chicken,” the guide informed them.  “But few white persons can bring themselves to eat it.”

“I’d rather have the fruits,” said Mr. Alcando.  The boys had eaten two of the jungle variety.  One was the mamaei, which was about as large as a peach, and the other the sapodilla, fruit of the color of a plum.  The seeds are in a jelly-like mass.

“You eat them and don’t have to be afraid of appendicitis,” said the Spaniard with a laugh.

Several views were taken in the jungle “village,” as Joe called it, and then they went farther on into the deep woods.

“Whew!  It’s hot!” exclaimed Joe, as they stopped to pitch a camp for dinner.  “I’m going to have a swim.”  They were near a good-sized stream.

“I’m with you,” said Blake, and the boys were soon splashing away in the water, which was cool and pleasant.

“Aren’t you coming in?” called Blake to Mr. Alcando, who was on shore.

“Yes, I think I will join you,” he replied.  He had begun to undress, when Blake, who had swum half-way across the stream, gave a sudden cry.

“Joe!  Joe!” he shouted.  “I’m taken with a cramp, and there is an alligator after me.  Help!”

CHAPTER XV

IN CULEBRA CUT

Joe sprang to his feet at the sound of his chum’s voice.  He had come ashore, after splashing around in the water, and, for the moment, Blake was alone in the river.

As Joe looked he saw a black, ugly snout, and back of it a glistening, black and knobby body, moving along after Blake, who was making frantic efforts to get out of the way.

“I’m coming, Blake!  I’m coming!” cried Joe, as he ran to the edge of the stream, with the intention of plunging in.

“You will be too late,” declared Mr. Alcando.  “The alligator will have him before you reach him.  Oh, that I was a good swimmer, or that I had a weapon.”

But Joe did not stay to hear what he said.  But one idea was in his mind, that of rescuing his chum from peril.  That he might not be in time never occurred to him.

Blake gave a gurgling cry, threw up his hands, and disappeared from sight as Joe plunged in to go to his rescue.

“It’s got him—­the beast has him!” cried the Spaniard, excitedly.

“No, not yet.  I guess maybe he sank:  to fool the alligator,” said the guide, an educated Indian named Ramo.  “I wonder if I can stop him with one shot?” he went on, taking up a powerful rifle that had been brought with the camp equipment.