"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?"