What he was trying to make now was a "frequency-transformer." If it would do what he was sure it would, and if he was right about the Algonians having vocal ability, they should be able to hear each other, and some day he might learn their language well enough to converse with them. He finished it and smuggled the little box-like machine into his place in the mine. When he had his crew down there and working at their tasks, he got out the little box. He turned on the current from the small battery installed in it, then began talking at the same time he was turning a rheostat higher and higher. Finally he noticed those mobile ears began to twitch, and as he turned the tones higher and still higher, more and more of the natives stopped work and turned toward him. Finally he noticed an intenser excitement among them, and they dropped their tools and came crowding closer to him and his machine, their little eyes almost emitting sparks of excitement. He thrilled with the realization that it worked. Now he turned another knob more and more, and gradually from the speaker came a jumble of sounds much like "mob-mutter," but very low. He kept on turning the rheostat until the incoming voices seemed about the same pitch as his own voice. The excitement of the natives had grown to tremendous proportions, and his own equalled theirs. Their little mouths were working faster, and an expression almost like laughter came onto their peculiar little faces, as they heard his voice and knew he could now hear theirs. Hanlon's own smile almost cracked his face. He realized he had learned something none of the greedy, power-mad Simonideans knew, and felt that here was the possible beginning for his campaign to free these poor native slaves. He beckoned to one of the nearer natives to come to his side, then waved the rest back to their work. They looked at him questioningly for a moment, but he smiled reassuringly at them and they, having learned that he never used that dread shock-rod on them, all went back to their labors, leaving the one native standing there. Hanlon looked earnestly at the Greenie, pointed a finger directly at himself and spoke into the microphone of his transformer. "Hanlon," he said slowly and distinctly, and repeated it a number of times, tapping himself on the chest each time he said it. A smile of comprehension broke over the native's little face and he tapped himself the same way and said a word that came out of the speaker sounding like "Geck." Hanlon reached out and touched the native and said "Geck." The Greenie in turn tapped Hanlon and said "An-yon," and they had made the first beginnings of understanding each other. From then on this one native was released from all other work while Hanlon's crew was on duty, and the two devoted all their efforts to learning how to talk to each other.