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 passing 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 shells 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 shells 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 shells 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 coons?" 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 coon 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 ashore, 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 appetite 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."
"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 in Tony's face.
Thereupon the swamp boy drew himself up proudly, as though he were
about to announce himself the descendant of a race of kings, while he
replied:
"Because, sah, the McGee is Madge's dad, an' mine! I'm Tony McGee!"