AAAHHH!  That is a mighty feeble reaction to being confronted by a 14 foot behemoth…  And surely Mark is snickering to himself as BGwPT falls into “his” trap.  But what about the time-honored cliché of “gun hits ground, gun discharges round??”  is there even any truth to that??  Apparently not, so thank you James Allen for not falling into that trap…

But oh my, let’s all hope that the gator doesn’t disappoint in the next installment!  How awesome would it be to see the Baddie half ingested, legs already down the gator-gullet, with a horrified shriek emanating from his bad-guy maw??  Sort of like the scene from Jaws with Quint half eaten by the shark!!  Remember that they stole their bad-guy boat from him (or his estate) or somehow reconstructed it after the shark tore it apart…  Oh whatever…

OK, dating myself a bit by harkening back to a David Bowie Lyric… But c’mon “Buddy,” Let’s Dance…

We now see Mr. Pony Tail favors his left hand, a sinister trait that has been ascribed to all manner of deviant thought and behavior, only to be debunked later and attached to all manner of creative and divergent thinking… and let’s be clear:  Michelangelo and da Vinci were left-handed, as were three of the last four occupants of the White House; the only right-handed President since the end of the Cold War has been George W. Bush.  You be the judge…

Mark, you are so clever these days!  I am not used to the level of cleverness with which you have been imbued now that you are under new management.  The old Trail was full of broad, clumsy, blocky maneuvers, while the new Trail is full of cunning and pluck!  Only you would know the “front” from the “back” of the gator mound, and strategically snap the one stick that would reveal your position and lure your adversary into harm’s way…

Interesting that BGwPT feels a level of familiarity to call out to Mark by Last Name… albeit with a question mark attached.  He knows he’s not in his element and may rue the day he signed up for this “job…”

One thing that Mark hasn’t lost, though, is his taste for high-water inseams that reveal his freakishly skinny ankles.

…always happen in concert with Nature…  Whether with Rex the Territorial Grizzly or some other something he happens upon, the way out is usually found with the help of a four-legged beast.  Does Mark have control, dominion even, over these animals?  Or is he just lucky in a karmic sort of way??  And just how he’ll use the Alligator mound to his advantage remains to be seen…

Thanks to his use of Brylcreem and sporting quick-dry clothing from top to bottom, one would never know that Mark was recently punched and dunked…  Watch out, Pony Tail, you are about to meet Mr. Gator!

…and Man with Erect Pony Tail has one of them, since we know that Mitchum is on the SWAN waving the other one around like he’s all that…

Mark, you have been knocked senseless so many times in your long and timeline-defying life it’s a wonder you can think at all…  but you always come through, whether it’s upsetting the hornets’ nest to get a drop on the Indian Artifact thieves, or entrapping the Senator’s aide into thinking you have recorded something incriminating, catching a Turtle Poacher or a Cheating Bass Fisherman red-handed, it’s only a matter of time before you turn the tables on these louts and we can return to a world where right is right and wrong gets punished…

Either Mitchum bleeds easily or that was quite a slap!  The very essence of the Bitch Slap, defined by the Urban Dictionary as “To open-handedly slap someone. Denote disrespect for the person being bitch slapped as they are not worthy of a man sized punch. Suggests the slap was met with little resistance and much whining.”  Bingo.

And guess what, oh Over-Excited One?  Cherry has already called your bluff.  That gun probably isn’t even loaded!  And Bad Guys rarely use words with 6 syllables…  Note how BGwB, now deep in thought, is wasting precious cycles just trying to keep up with what you are saying!!

Cherry, Honey, there’s a difference between surviving and thriving…  relative to the whole ‘fight or flight’ decision, Mark seems only to know ‘flight’ these days.   Yes, running allows one to survive, but picking the right fight can help a person thrive…

Huh? Huh?  What did I tell you??  In the brave new James Allen Trailverse, Cherry is the Alpha and Mark “I can take a punch and then run for help” Trail is no longer.  “Give up?” Mitchum must be thinking, “But I have the high ground here…”  That’s before he gets a face full of wrath, much deserved, by the way, based on that awfully smug look he has in panel two.

So while Bad Guy #1 (BG w/ Beard or BGwB) looks on, and Mitchum tries to collect himself after taking a blow, will Mark be able to out-run (again, to where?) BGwPT?  And what use is Justin Holland?  Cowering and simpering in the corner, no doubt…

Why don’t you take care of the guy coming after you?  At lease that evens the odds a bit…  We know now that Cherry is bad-ass and can probably take the other two guys while Justin cowers in the corner…

So, as Mark heads off in a random direction, the chance of ever seeing him again is slim…  I am sure that many a well-meaning soul has gone into the swamp only to lose the Trail, never to been seen again…  (ha!  Get it??  Lose the TRAIL??)

If it’s one thing I know that Cell Phones don’t cotton, it’s water.  Hell.  Moisture of any kind.  Unless Mark carries a phone specifically meant to endure a dunking, he’s dreaming.  I have a friend who once lost her phone whilst boating on the St. Croix, and ever the wit, she borrowed a phone to change her greeting: “Hello, you have reached <name withheld>’s cell phone, currently it’s at the bottom of Lake St. Croix.  If this is an emergency, please call me on my home phone, xxx-xxx-xxxx….

Besides, Mark, you are at least a couple of days’ slog up the ICW, and the sh*t’s going down NOW…  Better think again.  Roll your head around until that brain of yours seats and makes positive contact with both electrodes…  Besides, how far is he from the SWAN?  A couple of hundred feet?  I mean, can’t he be seen in all his dripping glory?  Isn’t he well within shooting range?  I’d duck, Mark, if I were you…

Like, for instance, no punching, no kicking, no hitting…  “We just want to waive a gun in their face and scare them a little…”  But now Mitchum is learning a lesson in Bad Guy – Henchman relations:  The only way to garner respect is to off one, or at least put into them the fear that you will , otherwise, there’s no respect… Remember Dr. Evil?  He had the buttons that would allow him at any time to send one of his crew to a fiery death (or at least injure them badly…) as a way to show his displeasure.  Or the Dread Pirate Roberts, who “promised” to kill Westley every day until Westley became the Dread Pirate Roberts.  See, Mitchum, you have no reputation for this stuff…

Swim Mark, Swim!!  To where??  You are in the middle of a swamp.  Are you expecting to run into someone?  A pay-phone perhaps?  Maybe that dude who was witness to your coming in the first place…