"That cain't be so. My folks never comes up this far. Yuh see, it sorter lies atween the town up yander, an' our diggin's," the swamp boy explained.
"But how about the dog, then?" Phil went on, becoming curious. "Perhaps it might be a party from the up-river settlements, hunting down here?"
Tony nodded, and something like the ghost of a smile crept athwart his sallow face.
"Huntin'? Yes, sah, that's what it mought be," he said, quickly. "But it's game yuh wouldn't want tuh bag, Phil. Sure enough, they's coon huntin'; but not the kind that has the bushy striped tail."
Phil was quick to grasp his meaning.
"Do you think they're after some fugitive negro? Is that what you mean, Tony?" he demanded; while Larry's innocent blue eyes began to distend, as they always did when their owner felt surprise or alarm.
"Sure," Tony asserted, confidently. "I orter know the bay o' a hound. That dawg is on the trail o' a runaway convict; an' yuh see nigh all the chain gang is black."
They all listened again. Somehow, since learning Tony's opinion, the sound, as it came welling out of the swamp far away, seemed more gruesome than ever. Phil could easily in imagination picture the scene, with a posse of determined keepers from the convict camp following the lead of dogs held in leash, and chasing after a wretched fugitive, who had somehow managed to get away from bondage in the turpentine pine woods.
"Poor critter!" muttered sympathetic Larry. "He's only a coon, and perhaps he deserves all he got; but it makes me shiver to think of his being hunted like a wild beast, all the same."
"Will they get him, do you think, Tony?" asked Phil.