Page:Outdoor Girls in Florida.djvu/122

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112
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA

my eyes and ears open, and when I hear anything I'll let you know, Miss. What sort of a looking young man might your brother be?"

Grace described Will accurately, enough so that Mr. Belton said he would know him if he saw or heard of him.

"And now are you young ladies ready to go back?" asked Mr. Hammond, as he smiled at Betty and her chusm.

"Quite," she answered. "We have had a good view of the interior of Florida."

"Oh, shucks!" exclaimed the labor contractor. "Begging your pardon, Miss, for that kind of talk. But you haven't seen anything of the interior yet. There's parts I wouldn't want to trust myself to, not with all of my men behind me, and I'm not a scary sort of an individual, either. There's parts no one has ever been in, I reckon. Don't you say so, Hammond?"

"That's what I do!" was the emphatic answer. "Well, are you ready, girls?"

They left, bidding Mr. and Mrs. Belton good-bye, and Grace received renewed promises that all possible would be done to locate her brother.

Mr. Belton promised to bring a boat-load of laborers to the orange grove in the morning, and as the visitors left they heard the soft strains of one of the negro songs following them through