“Oh, if it’s the elephant, we don’t have to worry.  He is a friend of ours,” said the porcupine.

Well, the crashing in the bushes still kept up, and then before you could tickle your pussy cat under the chin-chopper, there burst out of the middle of a prickly briar bush a great big alligator—­the same one who once before had tried to catch Uncle Wiggily.

“Oh, look!” cried the porcupine.  “He’s after us.”

“Indeed, I am!” exclaimed the ’gator.  “I’ll have a fine meal in about a minute.  I’ll pull all your quills out, and eat you with strawberry sauce on; prickly porcupine.”

“Oh, don’t you let him do it!” cried Uncle Wiggily.  “Stick some of your quills in him, and make him go away, Mr. Porcupine.”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” said the porcupine.  “You see, the alligator has such a thick skin on him that even a bullet will hardly go through, so my quills won’t hurt him.  I guess we had better run away.”

Well, they started to run away, but the ’gator, with his skillery-scalery tail, chased after them, and he could go very quickly, too, let me tell you.  Right after Uncle Wiggily and the porcupine the alligator raced, and he almost caught both of them.  Then the porcupine saw a hole just big enough for him to squeeze down, but not big enough for the alligator to come after.

Down into this hole jumped the prickly porcupine, and he was safe, but there was no hole for Uncle Wiggily to hide in, and the alligator was close after him.

“Jump up on a toadstool, and maybe he can’t get you!” called the porcupine, sticking the end of his nose out of the hole.

“I will!” cried the rabbit, and up on top of the biggest toadstool he landed with a jump.

“Oh, I can easily get you off there!” yelled the alligator, savage-like.  “I’ll have you down in a minute.”

He reached up with his claws to get the rabbit, and Uncle Wiggily got right in the middle of the toadstool, as far away as he could, but it wasn’t very far.  The alligator’s claws almost had him, when all of a sudden that toadstool quickly began to grow up tall.  Taller and taller it grew, for toadstools grow very fast you know.  Higher and higher it went, like an elevator, taking Uncle Wiggily up with it.

“Oh, now I’m safe!” cried the rabbit, for he was quite high in the air by this time.

“No, you’re not.  I’ll get you yet!” cried the alligator, as he reared up on the end of his skillery-scalery tail.  He made a grab for the rabbit, but the kind toadstool at once grew itself up as tall as the church steeple, with Uncle Wiggily still on top, and then, of course, the alligator couldn’t reach him.

“Oh, now I’m safe, but how ever am I going to get down?” thought the rabbit, for the alligator was still there.  But, in another minute, along came a policeman dog, and with his club he made that alligator run away back to the swamp where he belonged.  Then the toadstool began to get smaller and smaller, and it sank down close to the ground again and lowered the rabbit just like on an elevator in a store, and Uncle Wiggily was safe on earth once more.  And he was very thankful to the toadstool, which grew up so quickly just in time.