CHAPTER XIV.
SIMON GRAMPIERRE.
Ambrose lay in his tent with his head hidden in his arms, trying not to think. Job licked his hand unheeded. A hail from the river forced him to rouse himself. As he crawled out he instinctively cast a glance at the sun. It was mid-afternoon.
Tole Grampierre landed on the stones. "You are seeck!" he exclaimed, seeing Ambrose's face.
Though life loses all its savor, it must be carried on with a good air. "Mal de tête!" said Ambrose, making light of it. "It will soon pass."
Tole accepted the explanation. He told Ambrose that he had come that morning and found him gone. He had come back to tell him what the white man already knew—that, though Gaviller had been laid low by a mysterious stroke, he had sent word from his sick-bed that he would pay no more than one-fifty for wheat.
"The men are moch mad," Tole went on in his matter-of-fact way. "They not listen to my fat'er no more. Say he too old. All come to meet to our house to-night. There will be trouble. My fat'er send me for you. He say maybe you can stop the trouble."
"I stop it?" said Ambrose, laughing harshly. "What the devil can I do?"
Tole shrugged. "My fat'er say nobody but you can stop it."
It was clear to Ambrose that "trouble" signified danger to Colina.
"I'll come," he said apathetically.
"Where is your dugout?" asked Tole.
Ambrose explained.
"Bring all your things," said Tole. "You stay at our house now till you go back. My mot'er got good medicine. She cure mal de tête."
Ambrose reflected bitterly that Mrs. Grampierre's simples could hardly reach his complaint. Nevertheless, he was not anxious to be left alone—he was not one to nourish a sorrow. He packed up what remained of his outfit, and Tole stowed it in the dugout.
The Grampierre house was a mile and a half above the Company's establishment on the other side of the river. The two young men had, therefore, a three-mile paddle against the current.
Landing, Ambrose saw before him a low, wide-spreading house built of squared logs and whitewashed. Ample barns and outhouses spread around a rough square. The whole picture brought to mind a manor-house of earlier and simpler times.
The patriarch himself waited at the door. He was a fine figure of manhood—lean, straight, rugged as a jack-pine. He had the noble aquiline features of the red side of the house, and his dark face was wonderfully set off by a luxuriant, snowy thatch.
Ambrose, indifferent as he was, could not but be struck by the old man's beauty, and his dignity was equal to his good looks. Young Tole's naïve pride in his parent was explained.
Ambrose was introduced to a wide interior of a dignified bareness. This was the main room of the house; the kitchen they called it, though the cooking was done outside.
It was spotlessly clean; none too common a thing in the north. Clearly these people had their pride.
Still Ambrose was reminded of the difference between white and red, for the women of the house were ignored, and when later he sat down to sup with Simon and his five strong sons the wives waited humbly on the table.
Afterward the men sat before the door, smoking. Simon kept Ambrose at his right hand, and conversed with him as with an honored guest. He avoided all reference to what had brought him.
When Ambrose, not understanding the reason for his delicacy, asked about the coming meeting, Simon said:
"When all come you learn what every man thinks. I not want to shape your mind to my mind until all are here."
They came by ones and twos, a little company of twenty-odd. Many anomalies of race were exhibited. Some showed a Scotch cast of feature, some French, some purely Indian.
One or two might have been taken for white men had it not been for an odd cast of the eye. Yet it might happen the Indian and the white man were full brothers. The general character of the faces was stolid rather than passionate.
There was little talk.
The room having been cleared, they went inside. The women had disappeared. Simon Grampierre sat at an end of the room, with Ambrose at his right, and his sons ranged about him. The other men faced them from the body of the room.
There were not chairs for all, but indeed chairs suggested church, the trader's house, and other places of ceremony; and those without, squatting on their heels around the walls, were the happier.
Talk was slow to start. They kept their hats on and stolidly looked down their noses. When it began to grow dark a single little lamp was brought in and stood upon a dresser in the corner.
The wide room with its one spot of light and all the still, shadowy figures conveyed an effect of grimness.
Simon Grampierre opened the meeting. Out of courtesy to Ambrose all the talk was in English.
"Men!" said the patriarch. "John Gaviller send word that he will pay only one-fifty a bushel for our grain. We meet to talk and decide what to do. All must agree. In agreement there is strength.
"Already there has been much talk about our grain. I will waste no words now. For myself and my sons I pledge that we will not sell one bushel of grain less than dollar-seventy-five. What do the others say?"
One by one the men arose and repeated the pledge, each raising his right hand. Ambrose began to be aware that the stolidity masked a high emotional tension. It was his own presence that restrained them.
Simon rose again. "I have heard talk that you will spoil your grain," he said. "Some say let the cattle and horses in the field while it is green. Some say burn it when it gets ripe. That is foolish talk.
"Grain is as good as money or as fur. A man does not feed money to cattle nor burn up fur. I say cut your grain and thrash it and store it. Some one will buy it.
"Gaviller himself got to buy when he see we mean to stand together. He has made contracts to send flour to the far north. Who wants to speak?"
A little man of marked French characteristics sprang to his feet. His eyes flashed. "I speak!" he cried.
"This Jean Bateese Gagnon," explained Simon to Ambrose.
"Simon Grampierre say wait!" cried the little man passionately. "Always he say, 'Wait, wait, wait!' All right for Simon Grampierre to wait. He got plenty beef and potatoes and goods in his house. He can wait.
"What will a poor man do while he wait? What will I do—starve, and see my children starve? If we not sell grain we get no credit at the store. Where I get warm clothes for the winter and meat and sugar and powder for my gun?
"What do we wait for, un miracle? Do we wait for Gaviller's heart to soften? We wait a long tam for that I fink, me! While we wait I think Gaviller get busy. He say he come and cut our grain. Will we wait and let him?"
The old man interrupted here: "If Gaviller put his men on our land we fight," he said.
"Aha!" cried Jean Bateese. "He will not wait then. You say let us cut our grain and store it and wait for one to buy," he went on. "What will Gaviller do? I tell you. He will go to law! It is not the first time. He mak' the law to serve him.
"We all owe him for goods. He will send out and get law papers to say because we owe him money for goods our grain is his grain. If he got law-papers the police come and take our grain for him. Wat you say to t'at, hein?"
Old Simon was plainly disconcerted. He turned to Ambrose. "Will you speak?"
Ambrose's heart sank. How is a dead man to sway passionate, living men? However, he rose with the best assurance he could muster.
"I have only one thing to say," he began, conscious of the feebleness of his words. "John Gaviller is a sick man. I have seen the doctor. You cannot fight a sick man. I say do not accept his price—do not refuse it. The grain is not ripe yet. Wait till he is well."
A murmur of dissent went around the room. Ambrose being a stranger, there was a note of politeness in it.
Jean Bateese sprang to his feet again. "Ambrose Doane say wait!" he said. "He is good man. We lak him. But me, I am sick of waiting!
"To-day we hear John Gaviller is sick. All are sorry. All forget we have trouble wit' him. We wait to hear how he is. Wa! he say to us right out of his bed dollar-fifty or starve! Why should we wait till he get well? He does not wait!"
Another man, a burly, purple-cheeked son of earth, took up the harangue at the point where Jean Bateese dropped it. This was Jack Mackenzie, Simon said.
"Me, I am sick of waiting, too!" he cried. "Always we wait, and John Gaviller do what he like! Why he put down the price of grain? Why he do everything? It is to keep us in his debt. We can work till our backs break, but he fix it so we are still in debt.
"Because we can do not'ing when we are in his debt. We are his slaves! We got to break our slave chains. It is time to act. Now I say out loud what all are whispering: let us burn the store!"
Thirty men took a sharp breath between their teeth. There was a little silence; then quick cries of approval broke out. The meeting was with the speaker.
Ambrose, thinking of Colina, turned a little sick with apprehension.
Simon rose to still the noise, but Mackenzie held the floor.
"I know w'at Simon Grampierre goin' to say!" he cried, pointing. "He goin' to say if you break the law you fix yourselves. They send many police and put you all in jail. Simon Grampierre got good property. He not want lose it.
"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?"