“He’s made you no end of trouble,” declared Hodge. “It was he who induced Dick to rebel.”
“But he has learned his lesson. I saw that he was placed where he could have the very best care and nursing, and I left Dick with him.”
“Don’t expect gratitude from an onery redskin,” said Bart.
Then he looked round quickly and gave a breath of relief on discovering that Swiftwing was not in the room.
“I confess,” said Frank, “that Old Joe’s skin seemed chock full of peskiness, but he has taught Dick many things that no white man could. If I can get the false notions out of the boy’s head, he will be a perfect wonder in time.”
It was only after the death of Frank Merriwell’s father in the West that Merry had learned that he had a half-brother. In his will Mr. Merriwell imposed upon Frank the care of Dick, who had been brought up in the wilds of the West, in the care of Juan Delores, a Spanish refugee. The boy’s constant companion and mentor had been an old Indian, known as Joe Crowfoot. It had been with great difficulty that Frank had forced his young brother to accept him as his guardian, and the boy’s rebellion against Frank’s plans to remove him from his wild life had been encouraged by the old Indian, who loved the wild boy as he would have loved a son. Merry’s powerful will, however, had finally won both the boy and the Indian to him.
“What do you intend to do with Dick?” questioned Carson. “Will you send him to Yale?”
“I hope to; but first he will have to put in some years at school.”
“Where will you send him to school?”
“At Fardale.”