Donald's friends were greatly disappointed. They fully expected that he
would surrender himself to Major Dugas.
A few days subsequent to the interview it was announced that the
expedition had been broken up. The Government had recalled all the men
but five, who were left in charge of Detective Carpenter.
There was a tacit confession of failure.
The opposition press burst into a loud guffaw. "Was this the result of
a year's effort to capture a criminal? Was this the return for all the
expenditure which had been incurred?" The comic papers poked outrageous
fun at the expedition. The illustrated journals mocked it in pen and ink
sketches that smarted like aquafortis. The ribald versifiers flouted it
in metrical lampoons whose burden was--"The man I left behind me."