Something like a muffled chuckle came from behind the stairway door, but the good woman, intent on her grievance, did not hear it. Wilson heard, however, and let the boot-jack fall to the floor with a clatter. He picked it up and carried it over to its accustomed peg on the wall, whistling softly the tune which he had whistled to Billy in the old romping, astride-neck days:,
"I want'a know all you know about them men that are workin' Hinter's borin' outfit. Why ain't they ever seen outside that tall fence Scroggie's built 'round the derrick, an' why did he build that fence, anyways?",
Billy found Mrs. Keeler peeling onions in the cook-house and after some trouble made her understand what was wanted. While she was shedding her apron and hunting for her hat he went outside. Maurice's school-books and slate lay on the bench beneath the hop vine. Billy grinned as his eyes fell on them. He climbed to the top of the gate-post and searched the surrounding fields for his chum, locating him finally down near the ditch, a lonely and pathetic figure seated on a little knoll, methodically topping mangles with a sickle. His back was toward Billy and it took all the latter's self restraint to refrain from giving the rally call, but he remembered what he had promised Maurice's father. So he slid down from the post and picking up the slate, produced a stub of slate-pencil from a pocket and wrote a message in symbols. Then on the other side of the slate he duplicated the message, adding the necessary key to the code. This was the message that Billy wrote.
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