An Experiment That Proved Entirely Too Successful.
  Florida Letter; When Capt. Royce, late of Ohio, made his home in Florida he found a fine alligator perserve in one corner of his plantation, and realized almost as much from the sale of hides as from his oranges. In crossing a small bayou one day he saw a huge alligator snugly ensconced under a hanging bank, with little else than his nose on exhibtion. A colored man was sent to the house for a log chain and piece of pork, and the offered bait was taken safely in at one gulp. But when the attempt was made to land the prey the two men discovered that their muscle was nothing against the steady brace of the reptile’s two powerful forelegs.
    “Bring the little dun mule,” said the Captain, but when that animal came within scenting distance of the alligator it showed a desire to drift rapidly in the direction of home.
    But diplomacy finally attached him to the shore end of the chain, and when he was given the word “go” he made one jump that was accompanied by unforeseen cousequences. The alligator had let go for a new hold just as the dun mule made his initial bound. With a wild circular sweep and an echoing “swish” he left the muddy bed of the stream and went sailing through the air. He struck close to the off side of the mule and lay for a moment awaiting further developments. They came when the mule caught sight of his mortal foe that had so suddenly joined him company. With as wild a snort as ever echoed through the evergreen glades of Florida he made one wild plunge, broke looses from the colored man, and went off through the woods as fast as his short legs would carry him.
    The chain held and the alligator went along, over logs and stumps, against trees, across pools and mire-holes- a genuine stampede, gotten up by as badly scared a mule as ever set foot in Florida. Capt. Royce and his men followed the procession, and after running a half-mile found the mule in a tangle of bush, half dead from fright, and the alligator dead behind him.
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