CHAPTER XII 

 ADVENTURE ON THE HIGHWAY 



To travel round the world without money, weapons, 

 or baggage is an amazing feat, yet this is what Harry 

 A. Franck, an American University graduate, succeeded 

 in doing. He started as a cattleman, and became 

 in the course of his travels a clown, a sailor, a stow- 

 away, a pilgrim, an odd -job man, a beachcomber, and 

 a plain tramp. Needless to say he had many adven- 

 tures, one of which we quote from the story of his 

 travels l : " Our second day down the Menam was 

 enlivened by one adventure. About noonday we had 

 cooked our food in one of the huts of a good -sized 

 village, and paid for it by no means illiberally. Out- 

 side the shack we were suddenly surrounded by six 

 ' wild men ' of unusually angry and determined appear- 

 ance. Five of them carried dahs, the sixth a long, 

 clumsy musket. While the others danced about us, 

 waving their knives, the latter stopped three paces 

 away, raised his gun, and took deliberate aim at my 

 chest. The gleam in his eye suggested that he was not 

 ' bluffing.' I sprang to one side and threw the coco -nut 

 I was carrying in one hand hard at him. It struck 

 him on the jaw, below the ear. His scream sounded 



1 See Bibliography, n. 



I 4 209 



