“Me, I say all right!  I go to jail.  There is a trial.  Everything got come out.  John Gaviller he cannot make slaves after that.  I say let them send me to jail.  My children will be free!”

The meeting went wild at this.  Simon had lost control.  Even his own sons, as could be read in their faces, sympathized with the speakers.  The old man betrayed nothing in his face.  He stood like a rock until he could get a hearing.

“Jack Mackenzie say I rich,” he said proudly.  “Say I think of my property first.  I now say whatever we do, we do together.  We will decide by vote.  If you vote to burn the store I will put the fire to it myself!”

They cheered him to the echo.  Some cried:  “Burn the store!” Some cried:  “Vote!” By this move Simon captured their attention again.  He held up a hand for silence.

“Wait!” he said.  “I have a little more to say.  Jack Mackenzie say we got to break our chains.  Those are true words!  But how?  If we burn the store we only rivet them tighter.

“Gaviller will cry these are bad men and lawbreakers.  These are incendiaries!  It is a word the white men hate.  They will say do what you like to the incendiaries.  They deserve no better.”

The strange word intimidated them.  But a voice cried defiantly:  “Must we wait some more?” And their cries threatened to down the old man.

“No!” he cried in a voice that silenced them.  “Here is Ambrose Doane!” He paused for dramatic effect.

“I ask Ambrose Doane to our meeting to talk with us.  I now say to him”—­he turned to Ambrose—­“you have heard these men.  They are so much wronged they cannot see the right.  They are so mad they don’t know what they do.

“I ask, Ambrose Doane, will you save them from their madness?  Will you help us break our chains? Buy our grain?”

CHAPTER XV.

THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

An absolute silence followed Simon Grampierre’s unexpected words.  The astute old man had withheld his proposal until the psychological moment.  Ambrose was a little dazed by it.  He rose, feeling every eager eye upon him, and said slowly: 

“I must have a little time to consider.  I must talk with Simon Grampierre.  I will give him my answer before morning.”

Simon said to the company:  “Men, will you sell your wheat to Ambrose Doane at a dollar-seventy-five?”

The question broke the spell of silence.  There could be no mistake that the proposal was successful.  A chorus of acclamations filled the room.

“Very good!” said Simon.  “I will talk with Ambrose Doane and try to make him trade with us.”

The meeting broke up.  It was then a little after nine.

Simon and Ambrose went apart to a bench on the river bank.  There were innumerable questions to be asked and answered.  Simon estimated that the grain in question, provided they had no frost, would amount to twenty thousand bushels of wheat, and half as much oats.  It was a momentous decision for a youth like Ambrose to be called upon to make.