ce peeped out. It was Donald. "They're scared," he
said to himself, laughing. "Not much danger from _them_. I don't believe
they would know me. I'll test it."

He laid down his rifle at the foot of a tree, looked to his pistols, and
walked rapidly in the direction the constables had taken. Overtaking
them, he pushed his way through the brushwood, in advance of them, and
then, at a bend in the road which hid him from view, he leaped out upon
the road, turned, and met the party. He walked straight up to them,
looked them in the eye, and passed on. They did not know him; or, if, as
was alleged against them afterwards, they knew him, they were afraid to
arrest him. The statement that Donald carried his audacity so far as to
enter the hotel, and drink with them, he himself laughingly denied to
his friends.

The opposition papers jeered at the failure of the expedition. Ridicule
is the most powerful of weapons. Man is not half so humorous as the dog
or the elephant. With the latter it is an instinct. With the former it
is an acquirement. Still, the perception of humor is fairly general.
Don't argue with your opponent, Kill him with ridicule. Laughter is
deadly. When the people laugh at a Government it can put its spare
collar and shirt in its red handkerchief, and retire to the privacy of
its family. Mr. Mercier is sensitive to ridicule.

Mr. Mercier withdrew that expedition, and offered $3,000 reward for the
capture of Morrison!

CHAPTER XXV. PROOF AGAINST BRIBES!

"A man's a man for a' that."

It was now that Donald was to prove that integrity which for ages has
been so noble an attribute of the Highlander.

To many of the villagers $3,000 would have been a fortune. But if Donald
spent more of his time in the woods now than formerly, it was not that
he doubted the honor of the poorest peasant in the county. He well knew
that there was not a man or woman who would have accepted the reward if
it were to save them from starvation. He had no fear on that score. He
became more reserved in his movements, because his friends informed
him that since the offer of the reward, several suspicious-looking
individuals from Montreal, pretending to be commercial travellers, had
been seen loitering in the village. He therefore drew farther into the
woods, and avoided his father's house, either going to the houses of
his friends for food, or having it brought to him. If danger seemed
pressing, he passed the night in the woods