A voice, low but clear and distinct, cut the stillness.
"Hats off!"
As one man, they uncovered their heads.
The Interpreter's deep voice—kindly but charged with strange authority—swept over them.
"Workmen—what are you doing here? Are you toys that you give yourselves as playthings into the hands of this man who chooses to use you in his game? Are you children to be led by his idle words and moved by his foolish dreams? Are you men or are you cattle to be stampeded by him, without reason, to your own destruction? Would you, at this stranger's bidding, dig a pit for your fancied enemies and fall into it yourselves?"
Not a man in that great crowd of workmen moved. In breathless silence they stood awed by the majesty of the old basket maker's presence—hushed by the sorrowful authority of his voice.
Solemnly the Interpreter continued, "The one who took the life of your comrade workman, Captain Charlie, was not a tool in the hands of your employers as you have been led to believe. Neither was that dreadful act inspired by the workmen of Millsburgh. Captain Charlie was killed by a poor, foolish weakling who was under the same spell that to-night has so nearly led you into this blind folly of destroying that which should be your glory and your pride. Sam Whaley has confessed to me. He has surrendered himself to the proper authorities. But the instigator of the crime—the one who planned, ordered and directed it—the leader who dominated and drove his poor tool to the deed is this man Jake Vodell."
The sound of the Interpreter's voice ceased. For a moment longer that dead silence held—then as the full import of the old basket maker's words went home to them, the crowd with a roar of fury turned toward the spot where the agitator had stood when the arrival of the Interpreter interrupted his address.
But Jake Vodell had disappeared.