Cleveland and paid him ten dollars to examine
our Power of Attorney.

He pronounced it perfect, and said we had complied with the law in
having it recorded, in our method of deeding, and in every other
respect; and said that the patentee was powerless to annul the Power of
Attorney, except by giving me thirty days' notice.

We then concluded to give them a good chase, before giving up the horse
and carriage; for though they had spent considerable money in trying to
capture us, we realized that the horse and buggy were all we had to look
out for, so far as concerned any loss.

We stopped at a first-class hotel, and enjoyed life hugely.

While there, we met an acquaintance who had been speculating in wheat,
and had made a lot of money in a very short time.

He assured us that if we would let him invest a portion of our cash the
same as he was intending to invest his own, we would leave Cleveland
with a barrel of money. Of course we hadn't thought of scooping it in by
the barrel, and the idea rather caught us.

Neither Frank nor myself had the slightest conception of the method of
speculating in that way. And to this day, I am still as ignorant as then
regarding it, and have no desire to learn it.

Well, we let our friend invest five hundred dollars, and in less than
three days he called on us for three hundred more, saying he _must_ have
it to tide us over. Two days later he announced to us the crushing fact
that all was lost! His cash as well as ours.

He then began urging us to try it once more. Anxious to get back what
we had lost, we needed but little persuasion; and in less than one week
found ourselves about cleaned out. We had speculated all we cared to;
and after settling up with the landlord, started west again with the
horse and buggy, to continue our patent-right business.

Wherever we stopped, we imagined every time we saw a person approaching
us, that it was an officer with papers for our arrest, or a writ of
replevin for the horse and carriage. We cared more for the writ than we
did for the arrest, as we had by this time posted ourselves as to the
trouble and annoyance it would cause us to allow them to get possession
of the rig. Besides, it had already become a question whether we would
out-general them or they us.

We realized that their reasons, whatever they were, for demanding our
arrest, were groundless. So our only desire was to sell the whole outfit
at a good figure.

It would have paid