"In which Stencil nearly goes West with an alligator," relates Profane's experiences with the Alligator Patrol. The first section of chapter five concerns itself mainly with Profane's pursuit of a pinto "cocodrilo" through the sewers. He encounters the chapel of the insane(?) Father Fairing, a priest who journeyed into the sewers in 1934 to covert rats to the Roman Catholic faith in anicipation of the downfall of the human world. Fairing names his converts after saints and eats of his flock. His burial mound is found in the years before Profane's arrival in the sewers. Profane finally catches up with his quarry and half-heartedly blows it away. Benny suspects that the alligators he kills, like the Herero women of Mondaugen's story, welcome their deaths as an end to their preterite lives. Following the mercy killing in the Fairing's chapel, Profane takes a shot at something he believes to be an aligator but is actually Young Stencil.