The Hunted Outlaw | Page 2

a log hut, built by the wayside, and the
"schoolmarm" is not a pretentious person. But, what the school cannot
supply, a long line of intelligent, independent ancestors have supplied,
robust, common sense and sagacity.
Something of the gloom and sternness of the forest, something of the
sadness which is a conscious presence, is in their faces. Their humor
has a certain savor of grimness. For the rest, it may be said that they are
poor, and that they make little effort to be anything else. They do a
little farming and a little lumbering. They get food and clothing, they
are attached to their homesteads, and the world with all its tempting

possibilities passes them by. The young people seek the States, but
even they return, and end their days in the old home. They marry, and
get farms, and life moves with even step, the alternating seasons, with
their possibilities, probably forming their deepest absorptions. It
remains only to be said that, passionately attached to the customs, the
habits of thought of their forefathers, the Highlanders of the Lake
Megantic region are intensely clannish. Splendidly generous, they
would suffer death rather than betray the man who had eaten of their
salt. Eminently law-abiding, they would not stretch out a hand to
deprive of freedom one who had thrown himself upon their mercy.
CHAPTER II.
DONALD MORRISON APPEARS ON THE SCENE.
Life, could we only be well assured of it, is at the best when it is simple.
The woods of Lake Megantic in the summer cast a spell upon the spirit.
They are calm and serene, and just a little sad. They invite to rest, and
their calm strength and deep silence are a powerful rebuke to passion.
Amongst the deep woods of Marsden, Donald Morrison spent his
young years. His parents were in fairly comfortable circumstances, as
the term is understood in Compton. Donald was a fair-haired boy,
whose white forehead his mother had often kissed in pride as she
prepared him, with shining morning face, for the village school. Donald
was the pride of the village. Strong for his years and self-assertive, the
boys feared him. Handsome and fearless, and proud and masterful, his
little girl school-mates adored him. They adored him all the more that
he thought it beneath his boyish dignity to pay them attention. This is
true to all experience. Donald was passionate. He could not brook
interference. He even thus early, when he was learning his tablets at the
village school, developed those traits, the exercise of which, in later life,
was to make his name known throughout the breadth of the land.
Generous and kind-hearted to a degree, his impatience often hurried
him into actions which grieved his parents. He was generally in hot
water at school. He fought, and he generally won, but his cause was not
always right. He was supple, and he excelled in the village games.

CHAPTER III.
A LITTLE GIRL WITH YELLOW HAIR.
Minnie Duncan went to the same school with Donald. She was a shy
little thing with big brown eyes, which looked at you wistfully, and a
mass of yellow hair, which the sun in the summer mornings loved to
burnish. Minnie at the age of ten felt drawn to Donald, as timid women
generally feel drawn toward masterful men, ignoring the steadier love
of gentler natures. Donald had from the start constituted himself her
protector in a lordly way. He had once resented a belittling remark
which a schoolmate had used towards her, by soundly thrashing the
urchin who uttered it. Minnie pitied the lad, but she secretly adored
Donald. He was her hero. Donald was good enough to patronize her.
Minnie was too humble to resent this attitude. Was he not handsome
and strong, with fearless blue eyes; were not all her little girl
companions jealous of her? Did he not go to and come from school
with her and carry her books? Above all, had he not done battle in her
behalf?
Minnie Duncan was the only daughter of John and Mary Duncan, who
lived close to the Morrisons', upon a comfortable farm. She was dearly
loved, and she returned the affection bestowed upon her with the
beautiful abandon of that epoch when the tide of innocent trust and
love is at the full. They had never expressed their hopes in relation to
her future; but the wish of their hearts was that she might grow into a
modest, God-fearing woman, find a good farmer husband, and live and
die in the village.
CHAPTER IV.
"MINNIE, MINNIE," SHE SAID, "I MUST GUARD MY SECRET."
Donald Morrison was now twenty-three. The promise of his boyhood
had been realized. He was well made, with sinews like steel. He had a
blonde moustache, clustering hair, a