The Hunted Outlaw, or, Donald Morrison, the Canadian Rob Roy Part 10

"There's no use in stopping here," Leroyer said.

"No," replied McMahon, "we may as well go." As he spoke he carelessly ran the b.u.t.t end of his rifle under the bed!

Donald grew to the wall, and held his breath!

The rifle conveyed no sense of contact. It was thrust in without conscious motive.

The police took their departure.

"What a narrow escape!" Donald said, when he had emerged from his hiding-place. His face showed pale beneath the bronze. The perspiration stood in beads upon his brow.

The friendly creature who sheltered him trembled like an aspen.

She had expected discovery, arrest, perhaps even bloodshed. She felt all a woman's exaggerated horror of police, and law, and violence.

"Forgive me," Donald said, "for coming near the house. I'll not trouble you again."

CHAPTER x.x.xV. ANOTHER TRUCE ASKED FOR.

The friends of the outlaw made a last effort to bring about an accommodation. A noted lawyer in Toronto had been written to, and had offered to defend him. They went to Donald, showed him the letter, and peremptorily insisted that he should give himself up, or be content to have all his friends desert him.

Perhaps the outlaw realized at last how severely he had tried his friends' patience.

"Very well," he said, "I agree to give myself up. Tell the police, and get them to suspend operations. Come back here and let me know what they say."

Detective Carpenter was seen, and the situation explained to him.

"Well," said he, "I don't believe in truces with outlaws. This thing has lasted long enough. But if you can rely upon this new att.i.tude of the outlaw's, I would not be averse to a short suspension, though, if my men meet him before your next interview, they will certainly do their best to capture him."

Carpenter had placed two men--McMahon and Pete Leroyer (an Indian scout)--close to the outlaw's home, and told them to watch for him entering, and capture him at all hazards.

Carpenter knew that Donald must get his changes of clothing at his father's, and that a strict watch would sooner or later be rewarded.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI. SHOTS IN THE DARKNESS--DONALD IS CAPTURED.

It was about eight o'clock on Sunday evening. McMahon and Leroyer had watched all through Sat.u.r.day night and all through Sunday close to the house, hidden from view in the bush. They were wetted through with the snow; they were cold and hungry.

In the gathering darkness two men pa.s.sed them, knocked at the cottage door and entered.

"Did you see who they were?" McMahon asked.

"No," said his companion. "But see! they have lit the lamp; I'll creep forward and look through."

The scout crept towards the window on his hands and knees. He was as lithe and stealthy as a panther. He raised his head and looked in.

"My G.o.d, it's Morrison," he said to himself, as he crept back to his companion.

"It's Morrison," he said in an eager whisper. "I saw him sitting on a chair, talking to his mother. We have him when he comes out. How'll we take him?"

"We must call upon him to surrender, and if he refuses we must fire so as to lame, but not to hurt him."

At the moment that the glowing eyes of the scout looked in through the window, Donald was sitting on a chair in the middle of the floor talking to his mother, who was filling a bottle of milk for him.

"I'm to meet M---- in the morning in the woods, and then I'm going to surrender. The police by this time know my intention."

"You have acted wisely, Donald," his mother said. "We will all see that you get a fair trial. My poor hunted boy, what have you suffered during the past twelve months. Anything would be better than this. You are liable to be caught at any moment--perhaps shot."

"Have no fear, mother, on that score. I hope I am acting for the best in giving myself up."

"I'm sure you are, Donald. Here's your bottle of milk and your blanket."

"I don't know what may happen before we meet again, mother. Good-bye,"

and he bent down and kissed her withered face.

He opened the door, and went out into the darkness. "Throw up your hands," a ringing voice exclaimed.

"My G.o.d, I'm betrayed at last," Donald muttered, as he leaped the fence close to the house, and made a straight line for the woods.

McMahon and the scout leaped from their concealment, followed hard upon the fugitive, and fired repeatedly at him from their revolvers.

Could he escape?

He had fronted worse perils than this. Would fortune still smile upon him, or, deserting him in the moment of supreme need, leave him to destiny? The darkness favored him. The dense woods were near. Would he be able to reach them in safety?

McMahon and Leroyer, by simply going up to the door, and grasping the outlaw firmly the moment he came out, might have made the capture in a perfectly certain though commonplace manner. Both might be forgiven, however, for a little nervousness and excitement. The prize was within their grasp. For this moment they had lain out in the snow, wet and hungry. Brought suddenly face to face with the moment, the moment was a little too big for them. Neither of the pursuers aimed very steadily.

They grasped their revolvers, and made red punctures in the night.

What was that? A cry of pain.

The pursuers came up, and saw a figure totter and fall at their feet.

"You have caught me at last," Donald said; "but had the truce been kept, you never could have taken me."

The outlaw was wrapped in blankets and conveyed to Sherbrooke prison, and the following morning the papers announced all over the Dominion that "Donald Morrison, the famous outlaw, who had defied every effort of the Government for twelve months, had been captured, after having been severely wounded in the hip by a revolver shot."

In the jail Donald said--"I was taken by treachery."

But the outlaw had been secured!

CONCLUSION.