fits in, are
invited to contribute to a sum which is being made up to pay the cost of
establishing the rights of the American descendants, and there you are.
I suppose hundreds of thousands of dollars have been buncoed out of
credulous Americans in that way, first and last."

"I wish you could remember the Canadian address which you say you think
was Ottawa," rejoined the young woman reflectively.

"Why?"

"Because I saw in a Cleveland newspaper an advertisement of the same
nature, addressed to the heirs of the body of Clarissa Millington, born
Bradford. Clarissa Millington was my mother. There was no name signed,
but a business address was given, and it was in Ottawa."

"You have forgotten the address?" said Prime.

"I didn't try to remember it. I wrote it down, and I have it in my
luggage in Quebec."

The paddle-maker looked up with an accusing laugh.

"You were planning to return from Quebec by way of Ottawa; you were
going to give those sharks some of your hard-earned teaching money.
Don't deny it."

"I can't," she confessed. "I meant to do that very thing. And I thought
I had plenty of time. There was a date limit set in the advertisement,
and it was July thirty-first. Do you think it was a swindle?"

"There isn't the least doubt of it. Your kidnapping has saved you some
money. The date limit was merely to make you hustle. I have seen the
game worked before, and it is very plausible. And since it is usually
worked from Canada, a citizen of the United States has no recourse in
law. You had a narrow escape."

"We may call it that, anyway," was the young woman's reply. "The
thirty-first of July will probably be nothing more than a memory by the
time we find our way back to the world."

A busy silence followed the dismissal of the subject, and then Lucetta
began to tell about the various alarms she had had during the previous
night. "All of which goes to prove that I am still the normal woman,"
she concluded.

"You are a heroine, and one of these days I mean to put you in a book,"
Prime threatened. "You saved my life yesterday and my self-respect
to-day; and that is more than a man ought to expect from the most normal
woman in the world."

"Your self-respect?"

"Yes; you heard me babbling all night, and you have been good-hearted
enough not to report anything that a man need be ashamed of."

"You didn't say anything to be ashamed of," she returned quickly. "Most
of the talk was about the old farm n