"Peace, McIver! This community will not be plunged into the horrors of a class war such as you rightly fear. There are yet enough sane and loyal American citizens in Millsburgh to extinguish the fire that you and Jake Vodell have started."
* * * * *
When Jake Vodell came to the Interpreter's hut shortly after McIver had left, he was clearly in a state of nervous excitement.
"Well," he said, shortly, "I am here—what do you want—why did you send for me?"
The Interpreter spoke deliberately with his eyes fixed upon the dark face of the agitator. "Vodell, I have told you twice that your campaign in Millsburgh was a failure. Your coming to this community was a mistake. Your refusal to recognize the power of the thing that made your defeat certain was a mistake. You have now made your third and final mistake."
"A mistake! Hah—that is what you think. You do not know. I tell you that I have turned a trick that will win for me the game. Already the people are rallying to me. I have put McIver at last in a hole from which he will not escape. The Mill workers are ready now to do anything I say. You will see—to-morrow I will have these employers and all their capitalist class eating out of my hand. To me they shall beg for mercy. I—I will dictate the terms to them and they will pay. You may take my word—they will pay."
The man paced to and fro with the triumphant air of a conqueror, and his voice rang with his exultation.
"No, Jake Vodell," said the Interpreter, calmly. "You are deceiving yourself. Your dreams are as vain as your mistake is fatal."
The man faced the old basket maker suddenly, as if arrested by a possible meaning in the Interpreter's words that had not at first caught his attention.
"And what is this mistake that I have made?" he growled.