he husband of the woman, came out with a gun, dad
got down on his knees and tried to say a prayer, the Dakota man held up
both hands like it was a stage being held up, and I cried.

[Illustration: Dad got down on his knees and tried to say a prayer 178]

Finally the chauffeur said, in broken English, that the husband would
settle for $400, because he could pay the funeral expenses, get
another wife for half the money and have some thing left to lay up for
Christmas. As the man's gun was pointed at dad, he quit praying and
gave up the money and agreed to send $50 a month for 11 years, until the
oldest child was of age.

Well, we got away alive, got into Nice, and the chauffeur started back
and we cabled home for money to be sent to Geneva, Switzerland. But,
say; you have not heard the sequel. A story that has a sequel is always
the best, and I hope to die if the police of Nice didn't tell us that we
were buncoed by that old woman and that the chauffeur was in the scheme
and got part of dad's money. The way they do it is to wait till dark,
and then roll the woman in the dust and put some red ink on her face,
and she pretends to be run over, and the doctor is hired by the month,
and they average $500 a night, playing that game on automobile tourists
from America. After the woman is run over every night, and the money
is collected, and the victims have been allowed to go on their way, the
whole community gathers at the house of the injured woman and they have
a celebration and a dance, and probably our chauffeur got back to the
house that night in time to enjoy the celebration. I suppose thousands
of Americans are paying money for killing people that never got a
scratch.

Say, we think in America that we have plenty of ways to rob the
tenderfoot, but they give us cards and spades and little casino and beat
us every time. Dad wanted to hire a hack and go back and finish that old
woman with an ax, because he said he had a corpse coming to him, but the
police told him he could be arrested for thinking murder, and that he
was a dangerous man, and that they would give him 12 hours to get out
of France, and so we bought tickets for Switzerland, though what we came
here for I don't know, only dad said it was a republic like America
and he wanted to breathe the free air of mountains in the home of the
Switzerkase.

Well, anybody can have Switzerland if they want it. I will sell my
interest cheap. The first three days we were h