Quickly word of the gathering spread throughout the community. From every direction--from the Flats, from the neighborhood of the Martin home--and from the more distant parts of the city--men were moving toward the Mill. With every moment the crowd increased in size. Everywhere among the mass of men Vodell's helpers were busy.
A block away an automobile stopped at the curb in front of a deserted house. A man left the car, and, keeping well out of the light from the street lamps, walked swiftly to the outskirts of the mob. With his face hidden by the turned-up collar of his overcoat and the brim of his hat pulled low, he moved here and there in the thin edge of the multitude.
The agitator, standing on a goods box on the street opposite the big doors of the main Mill building, began his address. As one man, the hundreds of assembled workmen turned toward the leader of the strike. A hush fell over them. But there was one in that great crowd to whom the words of Jake Vodell meant nothing. Silent Billy Rand, pushing his way through the press of men, searched face after face with simple, untiring purpose.
A squad of police arrived. Vodell, calling attention to them, facetiously invited the guardians of the law to a seat of honor on the rostrum. The crowd laughed.
At that moment Billy Rand caught sight of the face he was seeking. When the Interpreter's messenger grasped his arm, the man, who was standing well back in the edge of the crowd, started with fear. Billy thrust the note into his hand. As he read the message he shook so that the paper rattled in his fingers. Helplessly he looked about. He seemed paralyzed with horror. Again Billy Rand grasped his arm and this time drew him aside, out of the crowd.
Helpless and shaken, the man made no effort to resist, as the Interpreter's deaf and dumb companion hurried him away down the street.
At the foot of the zigzag stairway Billy's charge sank down on the lower step, as if he had no strength to go on. Without a moment's pause Billy lifted him to his feet and almost carried him up the stairs and into the hut to place him, cowering and whimpering, before the man in the wheel chair.
John and Helen had gone to the Martin cottage that evening to spend an hour with the old workman and his daughter. They had just arrived when the telephone rang.