"Well, I'll take charge of him, if you don't wish to make the long journey,
Mr. Upton."
"I'll never know how to thank you, if you will," said the farmer gratefully. "Hi, there, Robert."
"Me?" droned the boy in the seat across the aisle.
"Who else do you suppose?" snapped his stepfather testily. "Come, rout out there, or I'll unhitch a strap somewhere and make you step lively."
Frank made up his mind that he would interest himself in the drifting waif of a fellow. As he thought of the big, husky farmer and his houseful of grown sons and daughters, he wondered if in their rough, unthinking way they had not quite broken the spirit of the motherless lad in their midst.
"Sit down here," ordered the farmer, turning the seat so it faced Frank. "This boy is going to Bellwood, Robert. He's agreed to take you along with him, and I'm going back home."
Robert shot a glance of dislike and suspicion at Frank, as if he was a link in a chain of jailers waiting for him along the line of life.
"You behave yourself along with him down at the academy, or I'll put you in the reform school," threatened the farmer harshly.
"Oh, give Bob something to think of that's pleasant," put in Frank cheerily. "It's a scary thing for a fellow, first time he goes among strangers. I'm bracing up myself to meet the rollicking, mischief-making crowd at Bellwood, who will just be lying in wait to guy us and haze us. We'll stand together, Bob, hey? and give them good as they send," and Frank slapped the lad on the shoulder, with a ringing laugh.
"They won't haze me," muttered Bob.