Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/354

Rh formal address is evidence. However, if there was to be a government, the latter wished to share its benefits, and anxiously conferred on the subject among themselves. The time being now ripe for action, the committee called a mass-meeting, to be held on the 2d of May at Champoeg, to hear their report.

On the appointed day, about an equal number of French and American settlers being assembled, the meeting was organized in the open air by the election of Ira L. Babcock as president, and Le Breton, Gray, and Willson as secretaries. The report of the committee was then read, and of course proved to be in favor of a political organization, to continue in force until the United States should establish a territorial government. This, on a motion to accept, was thought to be rejected on the first vote, when considerable confusion followed, occasioned by the speaker being unable to determine on which side was the majority. The ayes and noes being called for, there was still a doubt, when Le Breton moved that the meeting divide in order to be counted. Gray seconded the motion, and the order was given for those in favor of organization to file to the right, while the opposite party took the left.

The first to step to the right was Joseph L. Meek, his splendid figure clad in the ragged habiliments common to the improvident mountain men. With a sparkling eye, a voice of command, and the air of a major-general, the hero of many wild adventures in the Rocky Mountains stepped to a niche in history as he strode to his position, crying out, "Who's for a divide! All in favor of the report and of an organization follow me!"

Meek could always influence his comrades, and several took their places in his column, but half an hour elapsed, with some sharp remarks on both sides,