"Don"t think I ran away foolishly!" he exclaimed, coughing again.
"I--I came out here to find my sister, who is buried."
"Then your sister is dead?"
"No."
"Not dead? You said she is buried. How can a person be buried and not be dead?"
Frank began to think it possible the boy was rather "daffy."
"There--there"s lots to the story," came painfully from the boy. "I can"t tell you all. The letter said she was buried--buried so deep that Bernard Belmont could never find her. That letter was from Uncle Carter."
"Uncle Carter?"
"My father"s brother, Carter Morris. He lives somewhere in the mountains west of Lake Tahoe. He has a mine up there, and he is very queer. He thinks everybody wants to steal his mine, and he will let no one know where it is located. They say the ore he has brought here into Carson is of marvelous richness. Men have tried to follow him, but he has always succeeded in flinging them off the trail. Never have they tracked him to his mine."
"Then he is something of a hermit?"
"Yes, he is a hermit, and my sister is with him. He wrote that she was buried deep in the earth--that must be in his mine."
"How did your sister come to be with him?"
"I helped her--I helped her get away!" panted the boy, excitedly. "I knew they meant to kill us both!"
"They? Who?"
"Bernard Belmont and Apollo."
"Who is Bernard Belmont?"
"My stepfather. He married my mother, after the death of my father. He is a handsome man, but he has a wicked face, and he is a wretch--a wretch!"
The boy grew excited suddenly, almost screaming his words, while he struck his clinched hands together feebly.
"Steady," warned Frank. "You must not get so excited."
The boy began to cough, holding both hands to his breast. For some minutes he was shaken by that convulsive cough.
"Come," said Frank, "let me get you to the hotel. You must have a doctor. There must be no further delay."
"No, stop!" and the boy held to Merriwell"s arm. "I must tell you now.
I seem to feel that my strength is going--going! I must tell you!
He--he killed my mother!"
"Who--Bernard Belmont?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Killed her? You charge him with that?"
"I do. He killed her by inches. He tortured her to death by his abusive treatment--he frightened my poor mother to death. And then, when he found everything had been left to us--my sister and myself--then he set about the task of destroying us by inches. It was fixed so that he could get hold of everything with us out of the way, and he----"
Another fit of coughing came on, and, when it was finished, the boy was too weak to proceed with the story.
"You shall have a doctor immediately!" cried Frank, as he lifted the lad and again started for the hotel.
CHAPTER X.
THE STORY.
Frank succeeded in getting George Morris to the hotel, took him to a room, and put him on the bed.
"Do not leave me!" pleaded the boy. "Apollo will come and carry me off if you do. Stay here with me!"
"I"ll stay," a.s.sured Frank; "but I must find some of my friends and send for a physician. You must have a doctor right away."
Bruce, Diamond and Toots had gone out, but he found Harry, and told him what was desired. Harry started out to search for a doctor, while Frank returned to the boy, who was in a state of great agitation when he re-entered the room.
"Oh, I thought you would never come!" coughed the unfortunate lad.
"You were away so long!"
He was thin and pale, with deep-sunken eyes, which, however, were strangely bright. He was poorly and scantily dressed, and the hand that lay on his bosom seemed so thin that it was almost transparent.
One of his eyes had been struck by the fist of the brutish dwarf, and was turning purple. On one cheek there was a great bruise and a slight cut.
Frank"s heart had gone out in sympathy to this unfortunate lad, and he was filled with rage when he thought how brutally the poor boy had been treated.
Merriwell sat down on the edge of the bed, and took that thin, white hand. It felt like a little bundle of bones, and was so cold that it gave Frank a shudder.
"You are very ill," declared the boy from Yale. "I believe you have been starved."
"That was one way in which he tried to get rid of us," said George.
"You are speaking of Bernard Belmont?"
"Yes."
"He tried to starve you?"
"Yes, and my sister also. Little Milly! You should see her! She is such a sweet girl, and she is so good! I don"t see how he had the heart to torture her."
"This Belmont must be a human brute!" cried Merriwell, in anger. "He deserves to be broken on the wheel!"
"He is a brute!" weakly cried the boy. "He killed my mother--my dear, sweet mother! Oh, she was so good, and so beautiful! She loved us so--Milly and me! Listen, my dear friend," and the the boy drew Frank closer. "I--I think he--poisoned her!"
These words were whispered in a tone of such horror and grief that the soul of the listening lad was made to quiver like the vibrating strings of a violin when touched by the bow.