Chums in Dixie Part 17

The night settled down. Clouds had covered the heavens at sundown, and so they had next to no benefit from the moon, though it was evidently mounting some distance above the horizon in the east.

Sitting there later on Phil wondered what the near future held in store for himself and his chum. Would their presence be discovered by the men from the settlement, so that before the coming of dawn they might expect callers; or on the other hand, was it possible for him to carry out his own plan, entering the squatter settlement of his own free will, and demanding to see the terrible McGee, before whom most men had up to this time quailed?

But it was all as mysterious and dark as the night shades gathering there around the motor boat, tied up under the weird twisted live oak.

CHAPTER XVII

TALKING IT OVER

"Listen!"

It was Larry who gave utterance to this exclamation. Phil knew just what his chum must have heard, for several times during the last ten minutes the same sound had been faintly borne to his own ears, though he had not seen fit to mention the fact.

Coming on the night breeze what seemed to be the barking of dogs might be heard. Larry, apparently, did not know whether he could trust to his own judgment.

"Say, ain't that dogs barking, Phil?" he asked.

"Well," replied the other, coolly, "I don't believe they've got any wolves or coyotes down here in Northern Florida; and if they had, we wouldn't be apt to hear them carrying on that way. On the whole, Larry, I guess you'd be safe in calling it dogs, and letting it go at that."

"Poor old Pete!" muttered Larry.

"What's that?" queried his boat-mate, in surprise. "Do you really think our colored friend Pete is up against it again?"

"Why, he was going to come down this way, you know; and that sheriff seemed so dead set on getting him, that he's chased his dogs all the way," Larry explained.

Phil did not laugh, although he wanted to, for he knew Larry had a lot to learn about the big outdoors, and its myriad tongues.

"Stop and think a bit, Larry," he said, soberly. "In the first place that Sheriff Barker would hardly dare trust himself down here in the McGee country. You remember what Tony told us about how they treated him the last time he was here? And then again, if you notice carefully, you'll find a vast difference between the bay of a hound when on a trail, and the barking of dogs in a settlement."

"Oh! now I catch on to what you mean, Phil!" exclaimed Larry, chuckling. "Then all that racket really comes from the village where Tony's people live; and so we must be pretty close to his home right now."

"That's sound logic, I take it, Larry. How about it, Tony?" asked Phil, turning to the swamp boy, who sat there listening to what was being said, but without saying a word.

"'Bout mile straight across; p'raps two mile round by river," he replied.

"Just about what I thought," Phil went on. "You don't suppose, do you, Tony, they could have heard us when you and Larry were having your jig-time with the old mossback 'gator?"

"Might hear me shout, but b'lieve it other boys," was the reply which Tony made.

"I'm glad of that," Phil remarked, though he did not explain just why.

"And the more I think about it," Larry spoke up, "the greater I feel that I had a mighty narrow escape. Just you catch me dropping overboard again while we're around this region! Why, Phil, would you believe it, while I was fishing above, didn't I see as many as five of the nasty wigglers go swimming past. Ugh! they give me a cold creep."

"Now what do you mean by wigglers?" demanded his companion.

"Snakes, ugly brown and yellow fellers, with a nasty head, and a wicked look about 'em that I don't like a bit," Larry answered, readily, and shuddering as he spoke.

"Oh! you mean those everlasting water moccasins, do you?" Phil laughed.

"Well, they are ugly customers, I admit. And I've heard that their bite is mighty nearly as bad as the rattlesnake's, down here. How about that, Tony?"

"Not so bad, oh, no!" the swamp boy quickly replied. "Sometimes leave sore, not soon heal up. But weuns have medicine tuh take when cotton-mouth or moccasin hit in leg with fangs. We splash when we go through water in swamp, and skeer away. No bother much 'bout moccasin.

But rattler more trouble. Two year I get bit, and McGee have much hard time keepin' his Tony."

"I suppose he soaked you with whisky in the good old backwoods way; but Tony, they've got beyond that these days. Doctors have a remedy that will in most cases save the patient, unless he goes too long before being treated."

Phil had himself read up on the subject; but he made no effort to explain to his two friends. Larry would never remember a single thing about it; and the swamp boy of course could not have understood the meaning of much that such an explanation would entail.

All the same Phil was secretly pleased to hear his chum say so decidedly that he did not mean to again allow himself to drop overboard. It would be just like Larry to get bitten in the leg by one of those malignant little snakes, that continually threw themselves into att.i.tudes of defiance on the surface of the dark water, as though ready to give battle to the invaders of their preserves. And in such a case all sorts of trouble might ensue; though Phil's physician father had provided him with the proper remedy to be used under such conditions.

Tony had been so very quiet the whole evening that Phil knew his mind must be taken up with some serious thought.

"What ails you, Tony?" he finally asked, as they still sat there, no one seeming in any hurry to retire on this night. "I wouldn't worry over things, if I were you. Leave matters to me. I'm dead sure I've got that along with me to win over your awful dad, once he learns the truth."

Tony sighed heavily.

"That sound well, Phil," he muttered disconsolately; "yuh mean all right, sure; but yuh don't know McGee! He's gut a terrible temper!

Sometimes my mother, even she is 'fraid uh him. Then 'gain, he the kindest man alive. Never know what come. Just like storm, he jump up in summer--one minit sunshine, next howl, and pour down."

"And then it clears up, with the sun shining brighter than ever, ain't that so, Tony? Of course it is. Well," went on Phil, sagely, "I guess I can size the McGee up, all right. He's just got a fiendish temper.

He does things on the spur of the moment, that he's sorry for afterwards. All right. I can understand such a man; and Tony, take it for me, I'd rather deal with such a fiery disposition than the cold, calculating one of the man who never gets mad. I'm going to win over the McGee, see if I don't."

"Huh! just hope yuh do, Phil," said the other, eagerly. "If anybody kin do that, yuh kin, I declar. But I'm 'fraid 'bout what he does w'en he larns that yuh happens tuh be the boy uh Doc Lancing!"

"But Tony, you were thinking about something else too, besides this,"

the other went on, smilingly.

"Yep, that so, Phil," replied Tony, promptly, as though relieved in a measure to change the conversation to some other subject.

"Was it not about the little sister you left up-river?" Phil continued; for he could read the other like an open book.

"Madge!" murmured the swamp boy, and his soft way of p.r.o.nouncing that sweet name was the nearest approach to a caress in the human voice Phil had ever heard.

"You're wondering now if the good doctor from the North has arrived on time; and how the operation is going to pan out? Of course you're worried; because you must be anxious to know the best, or the worst.

It was a shame that they chased you out of town before he arrived."

"I think so many times," said Tony; "but now I see it not so bad. If I stay thar I never know you an' Larry. It heap worth while that I be 'long with yuh when yuh kim down hyah tuh the land uh the McGee.

P'raps Tony might help keep yuh from bein' whipped, er tarred an'

feathered."

"Good gracious!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed poor Larry, as he heard these fearful words drop from the lips of the other; "you don't mean to say he'd think of treating a couple of innocent, harmless kids like that, Tony? But then Phil has a winning way about him; and I'm ready to bank on him to bring your awful dad around."

"How about those pigeons, Tony; do you still believe one of them can get back home, and bring the news your friend expects to send, after the operation has been finished, one way or the other?"

Phil said this for two reasons. He really wanted to know what Tony thought; and at the same time wished to change the conversation; for Larry was apt to dwell upon that ugly black possibility of their feeling the weight of the McGee's violent temper, even though they did not merit the punishment in the least.