But something approaching an impasse had been reached when the would-be benefactors passed over the demand that their deluded victims should sign the roll of Communal Brotherhood.  The bait that had been offered had been all to the taste of these rough creatures who had never known better than an existence with a threat of possible unemployment overshadowing their lives.  But in the signature to the elaborate document they scented the concealed poison in the honeyed potion.  There was hesitation, reluctance.  There was argument in a confusion of tongues well-nigh bewildering.  A surge of voices filled the great building.

The agents were at work, men who posed as workers to attain their ends.  And the pale, long-haired creature and his satellites waited at the table.  They understood.  It was their business to understand.  They knew the minds they were dealing with, and their agents were skilled in their craft.  The process they relied on was the unthinking stupidity of the sheep.  Every man that could be persuaded had his friends, and each friend had his friend.  They knew friend would follow friend well-nigh blindly, and, having signed, native obstinacy and fear of ridicule would hold them fast to their pledge.

Presently the signing began.  It began with a burly river-jack who laughed stupidly to cover his doubt.  He was followed by a machine-minder, who hurled taunts at those who still held back.  Then came others, others whose failure to think for themselves left them content to follow the lead of their comrades.

The stream of signatures grew.  A pale youth, whose foolish grin revealed only his fitness for the heavy, unskilled work he was engaged upon, came up.  The pen was handed him, and the name of Adolph Mars was scrawled on the sheet.  The long-haired man at the table looked up at him.  He smiled with his lips, and patted the boy’s hand.  Then something happened.

It was movement.  Sudden movement on the platform.  The babel in the body of the hall went on.  But the long-haired man and his supporters at the table turned with eyes that were concerned and anxious.  A dozen men had entered swiftly through the door in rear of the platform.  Bull Sternford led them.  And he moved over to the table, with the swift, noiseless strides of a panther, and looked into the unwholesome face of the Bolshevist leader.

It was only for the fraction of a second.  The man made a movement which needed no interpretation.  His hand went to a hip pocket.  Instantly Bull’s great hands descended.  The man was picked up like a child.  He was lifted out of his seat and raised aloft.  He was borne towards the window where he was held while the master of the mill crashed a foot against its wooden sash.  The next moment the black-clothed body was hurled with terrific force out into the snowdrift waiting to receive it.  It was all so swiftly done.  The whole thing was a matter of seconds only.  Then Bull Sternford was back at the table, while his comrades, Bat and Lawton, and the men of loyalty they relied on, lined the platform.