O'Donnell, satisfied that a peaceable adjustment could now be effected, stepped down and went among the men strengthening the resolution which had just been taken. In the meantime the Pinkertons had been holding a final conference among themselves. A majority favored surrender and forced the captains, who were still doggedly bent upon holding out, to give in. Once more a white flag was hoisted on the Iron Mountain, and this time it was not shot down. At the sight of the flag, the workmen cheered and cries of "Victory!" "We have them now," "They surrender," rent the air. O'Donnell, accompanied by two other members of the advisory committee, ran down to the river bank and received the message of the detective who acted as spokesman. The purport of it was that the Pinkertons would surrender if protection from violence were assured to them. After a short parley, this was agreed to, although the howls and imprecations of an unruly mob which had thronged into the mill-yard boded ill for the fulfilment of the guarantee. O'Donnell had more than his own comrades to answer for. Throughout the afternoon thousands of outsiders--some of them millmen from South Pittsburgh, some roughs and toughs who relished the prospect of taking a hand in a fight of any kind, some Anarchists, aching for a chance to strike a blow at "Capital" and its representatives--had walked into Homestead over the railroad tracks and were now mingled with the steelworkers. These strangers, of course, were careless of consequences and indifferent to the restraining influence of O'Donnell and those associated with O'Donnell in ending the conflict. The women, too, were not to be relied upon. After being shut out of the battle-ground all day, it was questionable whether or not they could be held in check when the Pinkertons were placed at their mercy. It is well to bear these facts in mind in connection with the painful scene which is now to be depicted. The Pinkertons, despite O'Donnell's pledge of protection, seemed to lose all heart when the moment came to leave the barges. Nobody was willing to be the first to go on shore, and, as if seized by a panic, the helpless wretches huddled together behind benches and boxes and waited, in fear and trembling, for a summons from the other side. The workmen, however, were not slow to make themselves masters of the situation. Hundreds of them rushed down the bank, crossed the gang-plank and clambered into the barges. On the shore a tremendous crowd gathered, hooting and yelling, most of them carrying weapons of some kind. No wonder the Pinkertons blenched. They had to run the gauntlet, and if the experience before them was not destined to be almost as trying as that attributed to the victims of the gauntlet torture in tales of Indian life, it was not because the mob did not show all signs of thirsting for a fierce carnival of revenge.