Chums in Dixie | Page 9

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."
"And you've never been up in this region before, Tony?" asked Larry.
"Never has, sah. I wuks with the men, cuttin' shingles. It's the on'y way
we has of getting money. Twict a yeah a boat creeps up the river from
the gulf and we loads the stacks o' shingles on her. More'n a few times
it been a tug that kim arter the cypress bunches. Onct I went down on a
boat; and dad he took me tuh Pensacola. That's sure been the on'y time
I ever was in a city. I got two books thar."
He said this last as though it might have been the most important part
of his visit to civilization; and Phil smiled as he watched the varying
emotions on the eager face of the swamp boy whom he only knew as

Tony.
Then, as though he might have some reason for so doing, Phil once
more returned to the subject that seemed to be of prime importance in
his sight.
"Now about this big McGee," he remarked; "is he such a terrible fellow,
of whom even his own family keeps in terror?"
"That's what every one says, sah," returned the boy, quickly; "but 'taint
right tuh jedge a man by what his enemies tells. McGee is a big man, a
giant; he's strong as an ox; and his people they looks up tuh him right
smart. He's knocked a man down more'n once, with a blow from his fist;
but 'twas when he needed a lesson. The McGee has a heart, sah, I give
yuh my word on that. He keers a heap foh his wife and his chillen."
"Oh! then he has a wife and children?" remarked Phil, "and he thinks
considerable of them, does he? Perhaps, after all, he may be more
sinned against than sinning. You know of your own account that he
cares for these children, do you?"
"Sure I do," replied the other, eagerly, and for the moment forgetting
his caution. "I tell yuh, sah, that if it hadn't been foh all o' the lot that
wrastled with him, he would a-come up hisself with the little gal, 'stead
o' lettin' me do that same."
"Oh! you mean with Madge, your sister Madge?" cried Phil.
The boy nodded his head, a little sullenly, as though realizing what a
mess he had made of the secret he had thought to keep a while longer,
at least.
"But why should the terrible McGee bother his head about you and
Madge?" Phil demanded, smiling