and evidence that can not be controverted."

"That's my idea," went on the young operator. "Some of these accident
fakers are so clever that they fool the doctors."

"Do they really make a business of it?" asked Ruth.

"Indeed they do," Russ answered. "Sometimes a gang of men, who don't
like to work for a living, plan to have a series of accidents. They
decide on who shall be 'hurt,' and where. Then they get their witnesses,
who will testify to anything as long as they get paid for it. They hire
rascally lawyers, too. Sometimes they have fake accidents happen to
their wagons or automobiles instead of themselves. And more than once
conductors or motormen of cars have been in with the rascals."

"It doesn't seem possible!" protested Alice.

"It is though," her father assured her. "I read in a newspaper the other
day how two fakers were found out and arrested. But they had secured a
large sum in damages, so I presume they figured that it paid them. I
knew Dan Merley was an unprincipled man, but I did not believe he was an
accident swindler. But you can stop him, Russ."

"I don't see how you are going to do it," remarked Alice. "I mean, I
don't see that Dan Merley will let you take a moving picture of him, to
show to the court, proving that he is a swindler."

"I don't suppose he would--if he knew it," laughed Russ. "But I don't
propose to let him see me filming him. I've got to do it on the sly,
and it isn't going to be very easy. But I think I can manage it."

"I wish we could help you," said Ruth.

"Perhaps you can," the young moving picture operator answered. "I'll
have to make some plans. But we've got a big day ahead of us to-morrow,
and I can't do it then. I'll have to wait."

"Do you think I had better write to the court, and to the lawyers of the
street car company?" asked Mr. DeVere. "Your plan might fail, Russ."

"Well, of course it might, that's a fact. But there is time enough. I'd
like to try my way first, though, for it would be conclusive proof. If
you sent word to the lawyers, and they sent a witness up here to get his
evidence by eyesight, Merley might hear of it in some way and fool them.
He might pretend to be lame again, if he knew he was being watched.

"Then, too, he could bring his own witnesses to prove that he was lame
and unable to walk. It would be a case of which witnesses the court and
jury would believe.

"But if I get the proof on the film--you can't go back of that. Just
imagin