CHAPTER XXIV. TELLS HOW THE CONSTABLES ENJOYED THEMSELVES.
CAESAR—"Let me have men about me that are fat—
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights."
The five constables that Mr. Mercier sent down to Megantic put up in the village hotel.
Within an hour Donald had received the following note:—
"Dear Donald,—Action at last. Five men from Quebec after you. Keep away from Marsden for a day or so. I don't think there is much to fear. They would not know you, I believe, if they met you, and they are so frightened by the stories they have heard about you, that I don't believe they would dare to arrest you, even if they found you. However, as well be on the safe side. Go into the woods a little bit"
The people soon knew that an attempt was to be made to arrest Donald. 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.