n 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 u