"Ibis. Ain't so many 'round hyah nowadays as they used tuh be. Some fellers gits on tuh their roosts and nestin' places, an' kills the birds when they got young uns. My dad just hates them critters like pizen. He caught a cracker onct as done it, an' they give him a coat, all right. He never dast shoot another bird ag'in, I'm tellin' yuh."
"Meaning that they tarred and feathered him?" said Phil, who was better able to grasp the meaning of the swamp boy than innocent Larry, to whom all such language was like Hebrew or Greek. "Well, I'm glad to hear that your father has such notions. And it tells me he isn't the savage some of these up-river people tried to make us believe. For any man who would shoot the mother birds, and leave the young to starve in the nests, just for the sake of a dollar or two, ought to get tarred and feathered! Them's my sentiments, Tony!"
"Hear! hear! ditto! Count me in!" chirped Larry, nodding his head positively; for he had a tender heart; and the plaintive cry of starving nestlings would appeal to him strongly—even though he had never as yet heard such a thing.
"I believe that a true sportsman ought to never destroy more game than he can make use of," Phil continued, for the subject was one very close to his heart. "My father taught me that long ago; and I've grown to think more of it right along. I've known men to throw trout by dozens up on the bank, when their creel was as full as it could hold. They seemed to think that unless a fish was killed there could be no fun in capturing it."
"Say, don't they call those kind of chaps game butchers?" asked Larry.
"Right you are, Larry; and I'm glad to see that you've got the breed sized up to a dot. I'd let a deer trot past me without pulling trigger if I knew we had all the meat we could use in camp."
"But just now that doesn't happen to apply," remarked the other, pointedly.
"Hold the wheel for a minute, Larry, quick!" said Phil, in a low, thrilling tone.
He instantly snatched up the repeating gun as soon as his chum's fingers had closed upon the steering wheel. Larry turned his eyes to look ahead, for he realized that his companion must have seen something.
A crashing sound was heard. Then he had a glimpse of a dun colored object flitting through the scrub palmettoes under the pines.