As they were leaving, John said hurriedly to Helen, "Telephone Tom to come for you at once and take Mary home with you. Mother may need you, and Mary must not be left here alone. I'll bring Uncle Pete home with me."
A moment later the old workman and the general manager, in John's roadster, were on their way to the Mill.
When Tom arrived at the cottage with Helen's car the two young women were ready. They were entering the automobile when Billy Rand appeared. It was evident from his labored breathing that he had been running, but his face betrayed no excitement. With a pleased smile, as one who would say, "Luckily I got here just in time," he handed a folded paper to Mary.
By the light of the automobile lamp she read the Interpreter's message aloud to Helen.
"Telephone John to come to me at once with a big car. If you can't get
John tell Helen."
For an instant they looked at each other questioningly. Then Helen spoke to the chauffeur. "To the Interpreter's, Tom." She indicated to Billy Rand that he was to go with them.
* * * * *
It was not Jake Vodell's purpose to call openly in his address to the assembled workmen for an attack on the Mill. Such a demonstration against the employer class was indeed the purpose of the gathering, but it must come as the spontaneous outburst from the men themselves. His speech was planned merely to lay the kindling for the fire. The actual lighting of the blaze would follow later. The conflagration, too, would be started simultaneously from so many different points in the crowd that no one individual could be singled out as having incited the riot.
The agitator was still speaking when John and Peter Martin arrived on the scene. Quietly and carefully John drove through the outskirts of the crowd to a point close to the wall and not far from the main door of the building, nearly opposite the speaker. Stopping the motor the two men sat in the car listening to Vodell's address.
The agitator did not call attention to the presence of the manager of the Mill as he had to the police, nor was there any noticeable break in his speech. But throughout the great throng there was a movement—a ripple of excitement—as the men looked toward John and the old workman, and turned each to his neighbor with low-spoken comments. And then, from every part of the crowd, the agitator saw individuals moving quietly toward the manager's car until between the two men in the automobile and the main body of the speaker's audience a small compact group of workmen stood shoulder to shoulder. They were the men of the Mill workers' union who had refused to follow Jake Vodell. And every man, as he took his place, greeted John and the old workman with a low word, or a nod and a smile. The agitator concluded his address, and amid the shouts and applause left his place on the goods box to move about among his followers.