The young men gathered in the hotel round the constables, and told
blood-curdling stories of his dare-devilism in the North-West. The
constables were fat, phlegmatic, and anything but heroic. What they had
been accustomed to was an unexciting and steady beat in the drowsy old
city of Quebec, and small but unfailingly regular drinks of whiskey
_blanc_. This duty was new. Worst of all, it was perilous. This
Morrison--he might shoot at sight. True, they were armed with rifles and
revolvers; but they had heard that he was a dead shot. Perhaps he
might shoot first. That would, to say the least, be awkward, perhaps
dangerous, perhaps even fatal. No, they had not much stomach for the
work, and the people, perceiving this, encouraged their fears. In a very
short time Donald became a combination of Italian brigand, Dick Turpin,
and Wild West Cowboy, as these latter are depicted in the dime stories.

Whenever, therefore, the officers took their walks abroad, they stepped
very gingerly as they approached the village of Marsden. It never
occurred to them to enter Donald's home. They might have found him
half-a-dozen times a day. They never once crossed the threshold of the
woods.

Did not this terrible character know every tangled path, and might he
not open fire upon them without being seen?

The country roads are really white lines through the green of the woods.

One morning the constables left the hotel, primed with a little whiskey.
They took the road to Marsden. The woods skirted the narrow way on
either side. The summer was now well advanced, and the foliage was so
thick as to form an impenetrable lacery.

"We have been here a month now," said the officer in charge, in French,
"and we have accomplished nothing. I shall ask to be relieved at once.
The people will not help us. How could we ever find a man in these
woods? He might be here this moment," pointing to the trees at his
right, "yet what chance would we have of taking him?"

With one accord, the four subordinates answered "None."

"Suppose he were here," and the officer halted on his step, "how--What is
that? Did you hear anything?"

"Yes," said one of the constables timorously, "I heard a noise in the
brushwood."

"Suppose it were Morrison?"

And they looked at each other apprehensively.

"We will return," said the officer. "It is probably a bear. If I thought
it were Morrison, I would enter the wood," he said valorously. When they
were gone, a brown fa