Part 13 (1/2)

But Billy Rand saw him. A moment he looked at the man in the doorway inquiringly, as he would have regarded any one of the Interpreter's many visitors; then the deaf and dumb man's expression changed.

Glancing quickly at his still un.o.bserving companion, he caught up a hatchet that lay among the tools on the table and, with a movement that was not unlike the guarding action of a huge mastiff, rose to his feet.

His face was a picture of animal rage; his teeth were bared, his eyes gleamed, his every muscle was tense.

The man in the doorway was evidently no coward, but the smile vanished from his heavy face and his right hand went quickly inside his vest.

”What's the matter with you?” he said, sharply, as Billy started toward him with deliberate menace in his movement.

At the sound of the man's voice the Interpreter looked up. One glance and the old basket maker caught the wheels of his chair and with a quick, strong movement rolled himself between the two men--so close to Billy that he caught his defender by the arm. Facing his enraged companion, the Interpreter talked to him rapidly in their sign language and held out his hand for the hatchet. The silent Billy reluctantly surrendered the weapon and drew back to his place on the other side of the table, where he sat glaring at the stranger in angry watchfulness.

The man in the doorway laughed harshly. ”They told me I would find a helpless old cripple up here,” he said. ”I think you are pretty well protected at that.”

Regarding the stranger gravely, the Interpreter apologized for his companion. ”You can see that Billy is not wholly responsible,” he explained. ”He is little more than a child mentally; his actions are often apparently governed wholly by that strange instinct which seems to guide the animals. He is very devoted to me.”

”He seems to be in earnest all right,” said the stranger. ”He is a husky brute, too.”

The Interpreter, regarding the man inquiringly, almost as if he were seeking in the personality of his visitor the reason for Billy's startling conduct, replied, simply, ”He would have killed you.”

With a shrug of his thick shoulders, the stranger uninvited came forward and helped himself to a chair, and, with the air of one introducing a person of some importance, said, ”I am Vodell--Jake Vodell. You have heard of me, I think, heh?”

”Oh, yes. Indeed, I should say that every one has heard of you, Mr.

Vodell. Your work has given you even more than national prominence, I believe.”

The man was at no pains to conceal his satisfaction. ”I am known, yes.”

”It is odd,” said the Interpreter, ”but your face seems familiar to me, as if I had met you before.”

”You have heard me speak somewhere, maybe, heh?”

”No, it cannot be that. You have never been in Millsburgh before, have you?”

”No.”

”It is strange,” mused the old basket maker.

”It is the papers,” returned Vodell with a shrug. ”Many times the papers have my picture--you must have seen.”

”Of course, that is it,” exclaimed the Interpreter. ”I remember now, distinctly. It was in connection with that terrible bomb outrage in--”

”Sir!” interrupted the other indignantly. ”Outrage--what do you mean, outrage?”

”I was thinking of the innocent people who were killed or injured,”

returned the Interpreter, calmly. ”I believe you were also prominent in those western strikes where so many women and children suffered, were you not?”

The labor agitator replied with the exact manner of a scientific lecturer. ”It is unfortunate that innocent persons must sometimes be hurt in these affairs. But that is one of the penalties that society must pay for tolerating the conditions that make these industrial wars necessary.”

”If I remember correctly, you were in the South, too, at the time that mill was destroyed.”

”Oh, yes, they had me in jail there. But that was nothing. I have many such experiences. They are to me very commonplace. Wherever there are the poor laboring men who must fight for their rights, I go. The mines, shops, mills, factories--it is all the same to me. I go wherever I can serve the Cause. I have been in America now ten years, nearly eleven.”