Put Wiley, the hunchback, was there, too.
"Hello!" growled the man with the crooked eye. "He's come round. I'm glad on it, fer I want him ter know jest what his nosin' foolishness has done fer him."
Frank tried to speak, but he could not utter more than a wheezing whisper. The hunchback raised a foot, as if to bring it down on the face of the helpless lad, for Frank was bound hands and feet, but the other man thrust him aside, growling:
"Whut's the use! He'll be dead in five minutes. Don't kick ther poor fool."
Then Frank realized that he was bound across the track
of the old railroad that ran from the sheds to the quarry. The look that came to the face of the helpless lad seemed to tell the cock-eyed man that he understood the situation.
"You've made a fool of yerself," declared the man, unpityingly. "You was too nosy. Inquisitive critters alwus git inter trouble. The Boston man was too fresh, and he's planted. You saw his grave."
Strangely enough, at that moment the helpless boy asked a queer question:
"Where were you when you made that ghostly whisper?" he managed to huskily inquire.
"I dunno what good it'll do to ye ter know," was the answer. "You'll be dead right away. Mebbe one of us was hid in a holler tree near ye."