The next day John Barclay had Colonel Martin Culpepper and Lige Bemis in his office galvanizing them with his enthusiasm and coaching them in their task. They were to promise three dollars an acre, August 15, to every farmer who would put a mortgage on his land for six dollars an acre. The other three dollars was to cover the amount paid by Barclay as rent for the land the year before. They were also to offer the landowner a dollar and a half an acre to plough and plant the land by September 15, and another dollar to cultivate it ready for the harvest, and the company was to pay the taxes on the land and furnish the seed. Barclay had figured out the seed money from the sale of the mortgages. The man was a dynamo of courage and determination, and he charged the two men before him until they fairly prickled with the scheme. He talked in short hard sentences, going over and over his plan, drilling them to bear down on the hard times and that there would be no other buyers or renters for the land, and to say that the bank would not lend a dollar except in this way. Long after they had left his office, Barclay's voice haunted them. His face was set and his eyes steady and small, and the vertical wrinkle in his brow was as firm as an old scar. He limped about the room quickly, but his strong foot thumped the floor with a thud that punctuated his words. They left, and he sat down to write a letter to Bob Hendricks telling him the plan. He had finished two pages when General Hendricks came in a-tremble and breathless. The eyes of the two men met, and Hendricks replied:-- "It's Brownwell--the fat's in the fire, John. Brownwell's going!" "Going--going where?" asked the man at the desk, blankly. "Going to leave town. He's been in and given notice that he wants his money in gold day after to-morrow." "Well--well!" exclaimed Barclay, with his eyes staring dumbly at nothing on the dingy white wall before him. "Well--don't that beat the Jews? Going to leave town!" He pulled himself together and gripped his chair as he said, "Not by a damn sight he ain't. He's going to stay right here and sweat it out. We need that four thousand dollars in our business. No, you don't, Mr. Man--" he addressed a hypothetical Brownwell. "You're roped and tied and bucked and gagged, and you stay here." Then he said, "You go on over to the bank, General, and I'll take care of Brownwell." Barclay literally shoved the older man to the door. As he opened it he said, "Send me up a boy if you see one on the street." In ten minutes Brownwell was running up the stairs to Barclay's office in response to his note. He brought a copy of the mortgage with, him, and laid it before Barclay, who went over it critically. He found a few errors and marked them, and holding it in his hands turned to the editor.