Chapter 26

THE REWARD FAILS.

Time passed on. Donald was still at large. The reward had failed. Private detectives from Montreal, who had remained in the district for weeks, returned in disgust, confessing that Morrison's capture was impossible so long as he had friends to inform him of every movement, and the woods to retreat to.

At the police headquarters in Montreal various schemes were discussed. Chief Hughes was of opinion that thirty resolute men, skilfully directed, could accomplish the capture.

It was now the fall, and if action were not speedily taken, the winter woods, filled with snow, would soon mock all effort of authority.

The press kept up the public interest in the case. Morrison had been seen drinking at the hotel in Lake Megantic. He had attended a dance in Marsden. He had driven publicly with the Mayor of Gould, with his rifle slung from his shoulder. He went to church every Sunday, and he had taken the sacrament. All this according to the press. Did the Mercier Government, then, confess that it had abdicated its functions? Was this Scotland in the Seventeenth Century, and this Morrison a romantic Rob Roy, with a poetic halo round his picturesque head, or was it America in the Nineteenth, with the lightning express, the phonograph, and Pinkerton's bureau, and this criminal one of a vulgar type in whose crime sentiment had no place?

Did the Government intend to allow this man to defy the law? If it did, was this not putting a premium upon crime? If it did not, what steps did it intend to take to secure his arrest? Thus far the newspapers.