"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."