o 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."

"And you've never been up in this region before, Tony?" asked Larry.

"Never has, sah. I wuks with the men, cuttin' shingles.