"A man in Pensacola, as knowed my mam afore she married dad, sent a pair home to her last time they took shingles down thar, which was a year back. I made a coop foh the birds an' they hatched out a heap o'

young uns. These hyah three is the pick o' the flock; an' I sure has hopes o' seein' one of 'em right soon after Tom he starts 'em loose."

"Well, you've interested me a heap," declared Larry. "Why, it's just like a story, you see. The good doctor comes, restores the sight to your sweet little sister's eyes; and then the glorious news is flashed home by a dove of peace and good tidings. Of course it'll be good news, Tony. Didn't the dove bring that kind back to old Noah in the ark? I'm awful glad you just happened to hit our boat when you wanted some place to hide. Why, I wouldn't have missed meeting you for a whole lot. Have you had anything to eat this morning, Tony?"

When he learned that their guest was really hungry, Larry immediately started to get something going. He drew out a little square black tin box; this, on being opened disclosed a bra.s.s contrivance which turned out to be a German Jewel kerosene gas stove. This was quickly started, and began a cheery song, as though inviting a kettle to accept of its genial warmth.

Evidently the swamp boy had never in all his life seen anything like this, to judge from the way he gazed. Nor had he ever scented coffee that had the aroma such as was soon filling the air about them; for he could not help sniffing eagerly every little while, to the secret amus.e.m.e.nt of Larry.

All this while the boat had been speeding down the narrow but deep stream. Phil could look after the wheel and the engine at the same time; though as a rule he depended on his chum to stand in the bow, and warn him of any floating log or snag, such as might play the mischief with the cedar sheathing of the modern motor boat.

When Larry announced that lunch was ready Phil slowed down, and presently came alongside the bank, at a place where a cable could be warped around a convenient tree. For, since they were in no particular hurry, they did not feel that it was necessary to keep on the move while eating.

Larry had heated up a mess of Boston baked beans. Besides this they had some soda biscuits which had been purchased from a woman in the town; some cheese; and a can of sardines; the whole to be topped off with a dish of prunes, cooked on the preceding evening, and only partly eaten.

When Tony received his share he ate ravenously. Perhaps the boy had seldom tasted such a fine variety of food, for the canned stuffs likely to reach these squatters of the big cypress swamps were apt to be of the cheapest variety.

They were sitting thus as the lunch drew near its conclusion when, in addressing his chum in some laughing way, Larry happened to mention his name in full.

The effect upon Tony was singular. He started as though he had been shot, and immediately stared at Phil; while a troubled look came over his sallow face; just as though he had recognized a name that was being held up to derision and execration down in the settlement of the McGee squatters!

CHAPTER III

THE SQUATTERS

A short time later, and once more Larry loosened the rope that held the motor boat to the bank; so that the swift current taking hold, commenced to carry the craft down stream. Then Phil started operations; and the merry popping of the noisy exhaust told that they were being urged on at a faster gait than the movement of the stream could boast.

Tony had curled up in the sun, just like a dog might have done. He seemed to be asleep; and the two other boys talked in low tones as they continued to glide on down the winding river; now under heavy trees, and again pa.s.sing through an open stretch, where the turpentine industry had killed the pines years back; so that only a new growth was coming on.

Perhaps Phil might have thought it a bit singular had he known that Tony did not sleep for a single minute as he lay there; but was from time to time observing his new friends from the shelter of his arms, on which his head lay.

Phil had reached under the deck of the boat and brought forth a splendid gun of the latest model. It was a Marlin repeater, known among hunters as a pump gun; and could be fired six times without reloading, the empty sh.e.l.ls being thrown out from the side instead of in the marksman's face.

This fine weapon had been a present to the boy from his father on the preceding summer, when he had a birthday; and as yet he had found no opportunity to test its shooting qualities. Still, his father had once been something of a true sportsman, and knew more or less about the value of firearms; so that Phil never feared but that it would prove to be an excellent tool.

"I've got some buckshot sh.e.l.ls along with me, you remember, Larry," he was saying as he guided the boat, and tried to keep her in the middle of the widening stream. "And I fetched them in the hope of meeting up with a Florida deer, or perhaps a panther; which animal is found down here. If a fellow can't carry a rifle these buckshot sh.e.l.ls answer pretty well. I got my deer up in the Adirondacks last year with one, fired from my old double-barrel."

"How about grizzly bears and wildcats and c.o.o.ns?" asked Larry, not in the least ashamed to show his utter ignorance about all such matters, in his quest of knowledge.

At that Phil laughed out loud.

"The bobcat and c.o.o.n part is all O. K., Larry," he said; "but you're away off when you think we're going to rub up against a grizzly bear down in Florida. They have got a specimen of the breed here, but it's only a small black fellow, and not particularly ferocious, they tell me. But we'll ask Tony about all these things later on; he ought to know."

"Yes, and perhaps he can help us go ash.o.r.e, and get a fine deer once in a while!" exclaimed Larry, who loved to enjoy the good things of life almost as much as he did to exploit his ability as a cook. "Yum! yum, a real venison steak, cooked on the spot where the animal was shot--what a treat for hungry fellows, eh?"

"Wait," said the other, nodding. "You may change your mind before a great while. For instance, venison ought to hang quite a time before being eaten. I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed, Larry, and that if we're lucky enough to get a deer you'll find it as tough and dry as all get-out."

"Then things ain't all they're cracked up to be," declared the other.

"I always read that things tasted just dandy in camp; and here you spoil all my illusions right off the reel."

"They taste good because the appet.i.te is there," remarked Phil. "A fellow gets as hungry as a bear in the spring after he comes out from his hibernating. But already you ought to know that, because you're eating half again as much as you do up home. And of your own cooking too."

"That stamps it gilt-edged, A Number One," laughed Larry. "But here's Tony beginning to wake up. Come and join us, Tony. We want to ask you heaps of things about the animals of the timber and the swamps; also something about your people. You see, we ain't down here just for our health or the fun of ft. Phil here has got a mission to perform, that concerns the terrible McGee they told us about up in the river town."

Again did Tony send that questioning look at Phil Lancing; and there was something besides inquiry in his manner. Doubtless the words so carelessly uttered by good-natured Larry had stirred up mingled emotions in the breast of the swamp boy, and he was wondering what sort of a message the son of the man who now owned all that wild country below, could be carrying to the giant shingle-maker, leader of the whole McGee clan.

"If I c'n tell you anything jest ask me, sah!" he remarked, in his singularly smooth and even voice. "I sure ought tuh be ready tuh 'blige after all yuh done foh me. But I wisht you'd done never come down thisaways, case they's hard men, the McGees, an' I reckons as how they ain't got any reason tuh think kindly o' your governor."

As he said this bluntly, Tony looked squarely into the face of Phil; who however only smiled as he made reply.

"I see you have heard my name before, Tony? Well, you never heard anything bad in connection with it, I'll be bound. It's true that my father did come into possession of ten thousand acres or more of land and swamp, lying along this same little river a year or two ago. And he's taken a notion that something ought to be done to make it more profitable than it seems to be now. That's one of the reasons I'm down here. My father don't like the idea of having squatters on his lands.

He wants to make a change."

Tony squirmed uneasily, and the look on his face was really painful to see. At one instant it seemed as though defiance ruled; only to give way to distress; as in imagination he saw these new-found friends, who had been so very kind to him, in the hands of his infuriated clansmen, and being roughly treated.

"Better not keep on down-river, sah!" he muttered. "They all knows that name o' Lancing. Sure I've heard many a shingle-maker curse it, an' say what he'd do tuh the new owner, if ever he dared show his face on the river. An' what they'd do tuh your dad they'd like enough do tuh you. That's why I asks yuh to turn aroun' an' go back, while yuh has the chanct."

"Why, you don't mean to say your people would try to harm us?" asked Larry, his round face showing signs of uneasiness.

"They sure would, if they knowed his name was Lancing," replied the other, doggedly. "They's a tough lot, seein' as how they lead a hard life, an' they think they got a right to the land they built ther shanties on. More'n once the sheriff he tried tuh git his man down yonder. Sho! they jest rode him on a rail, an' warned him if ever he showed his face thar again they'd sure tar and feather him. An' let me tell yuh, he ain't come back from that day to this'n."

"Well," Phil went on, coolly, "I've heard all those things from the people of the town. They haven't one good word to say for McGee and his tribe. But somehow I've got a notion that your folks ain't as black as they're painted. And I'm banking on that idea just enough to take the risk of going on down there, even if it is bearding the lion in his den."

Tony shook his head dismally, and looked disappointed.

"Wisht yuh wouldn't," he muttered. "Yuh been good to me, an' I'd hate tuh know anything happened."

"Oh! that's all right, Tony," said Phil, cheerfully. "Nothing's going to happen--nothing bad, I mean. I'm not afraid to meet the terrible McGee face to face. I just want to tell him something that will make him change his mind pretty quick, I guess."

"And when they see that we've been good friends to you, Tony," remarked Larry, "they couldn't think to injure us. We come not in war but in peace. Phil, my chum, has got an idea he can fix up this whole matter without a fight; and that when he comes away again, there won't be a single squatter on the ten thousand acres his dad owns."

"Perhaps yuh mean well, but they wouldn't understand," said the swamp boy, laying a hand on the sleeve of Phil. "If yuh kept your name secret nothin' might happen; but oh! just as soon as they learn that Dr. Lancing is your dad they're sure tuh go crazy. Then it'll be too late. Even the McGee himself couldn't hold 'em back then, big as he is, and the strongest man in all Florida."

His pleading did not seem to have any effect however. Evidently Phil had the utmost confidence in himself, and his mission as well. He knew what he was carrying in his pocket, and had faith to believe that it would win for him a welcome entirely the opposite of the rough greeting Tony predicted. But then Phil had never met the lawless McGees, who snapped their impudent fingers at the sheriff of the county, and did just about as they liked; owning allegiance only to their terrible leader, whose name was the most hated one known along the upper reaches of the river.

"There seems to be something of war between your people and these folks up in this section of the country," Phil remarked, wishing to change the conversation. "Has that always been so, and do they come to actual blows occasionally?"

"Huh! none o' the McGees ever comes up thisaways; they knows better.

And they ain't a single critter belongin' tuh the upper river as dast show so much as the tip o' his nose down thar. They'd string him up; or give him a coat o' feathers. That's why my dad, he let me bring the little sister up; when he said as how he'd come hisself, mam and all the rest wouldn't hear o' it nohow; case they just knowed they'd never see him any more. If the sheriff didn't git him, some o' these cowards would, with a bullet."

"Your father, then, must be hated almost as much as the McGee himself?"

observed Larry.

The swamp boy looked confused, and then hastily muttered:

"I reckons as how he is, more p'raps."