"This is terrible!" cried the professor, his face crimson with anger. "Frank Merriwell, you are an ungrateful, reckless, heartless young rascal!"
"Oh, professor!"
Frank seemed deeply touched. He grew sober in a moment, out came his handkerchief, he carried it to his eyes, and he began to sob in a pitiful way.
Behind the handkerchief the mischievous lad was laughing still.
The professor rushed about the room a moment, and then he stopped, staring at Frank and beginning to look distressed.
"That I—should—ev-ev-ever live—to—see—this sad—hour!" sobbed the boy, with the handkerchief to his eyes. "That I should be called ungrateful and heartless by a man I have loved and honored like—like a—a sister! If my poor uncle had not died——"
"Goodness knows you cannot feel worse about that than I do!" came from the little man's lips. "I suppose he fancied he was doing me a favor when he appointed me your guardian and directed that I should accompany you as your tutor in your travels over the world. Your tutor indeed! Why, you insist on giving me points and information about every place we visit. You do exactly as you please, and it is a wonder that either of us is alive to-day. You have dragged us through the most deadly perils, and now that I object when you want to go ranting away into a wild and unexplored region of Southern Utah, where you say there dwells the last remnant of the murderous and terrible Danites, you—you—you——"
"What have I done?" sobbed Frank.
"Why, you've—you've said——"
"What?"