Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 160: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

158 “Peter Huntley. I can get fine letters of recommendation from two big Indiana corporations, and I’ll take the place at a very reasonable figure. You see, Westover is my home town.” ‘““You’re too late,’”’ Farnsworth Alden said sourly. “I’ve got a man coming from Vir- ginia. If you’ve no further business with me——”’ He had lied. He had no man coming from Virginia, and the other knew it. Huntley went white with anger. Alden might have remembered that the big young man there before him had been a quick fighter all his life, but he didn’t. With a burning insolence, he went on: ‘“Vou’d better be going. _We’ve got noth- ing here for you.” They were standing on the river’s bank, just below the new building. Huntley took a step forward and seized Alden’s coat lapel. “But I’ve got something for you, you grafter!” he growled. ‘‘And it’s this: I’m going to tell the people of Westover of your graft scheme; [T’m going to tell them all about this rotten.dam that will be a constant menace to them, about the old and worn-out machinery, about every- thing; and I’m also going to wire the State’s committee on public safety! You may hoodwink people who don’t know anything about dams and power-plants, but you sure can’t hoodwink the authori- ties—you lying, stealing, villainous grafter!”’ Farnsworth Alden went guiltily purple. “Graft scheme?” he throated. ‘Hunt- ley, you’re crazy!” “Oh, am 1?” The younger man’s smile was white and dangerous. “T know something about graft schemes, crazy or not. The rest of the ring lets the contract to you for a hundred thousand; it costs you sixty, with a handsome profit in that for yourself; then you split the remaining forty with the rest of the ring. It’s polite robbery, which is on a par with holy murder. Would you mind telling me just how much I missed it in my figures, Mr. Farnsworth Alden?’ If only he had thought of Marian, he would have been more careful. But he didn’t think. Alden had called his hand, and he had been too intensely human to resist the temptation of showing that it was a big one. Adventure Alden had by this time recovered his presence of mind. “What do you know about machinery and dams?”’ he roared. He really believed the dam would hold in any water. ‘You ‘scapegrace, I remember the reputation you used to have in Westover. Do you think I would put a man like you in charge of this plant? Not on your life! About the first thing we knew, you’d be entering suit against us, like your whining father 4 THAT was as far as he was per- mitted to go with it. Peter Hunt- ley struck the sneering fat mouth so hard that he knocked out two teeth and splintered a bone in his hand. Alden reeled backward, and before he could fall Huntley had driven home another blow. This sent him into the river, which was shoulder-deep at that point. He came up puffing and sputtering. Huntley, blind with the pent-up anger of years, sprang to the water and hammered the pudgy, piggish face again. But in all that he had been unwise. He had but let himself fall into a trap that the resourceful Alden had laid for him— but Alden, it is safe to say, hadn’t dreamed that he would fall so quickly and so hard! The grafting contractor had been cor- nered tight. He saw the State peni- tentiary looming gray ahead of him. The easiest way out of that corner was to goad Huntley to fight him, and then have Hunt- ley tried and imprisoned on a charge of assault. A ring magistrate would do it. Once in the Westover jail, the trouble- maker would have no opportunity to com- municate with the State authorities or alarm the populace. Within two weeks the dam would be finished and therefore proof against investigations, and the people would be too well pleased with their elec- trically-lighted town to pay any attention to a howler of calamity. A score of workmen rushed to their employer’s aid. They dragged him, gasp- ing for breath, from the water. Huntley calmly waded out and began to look for his hat, which he had lost. “Hold him!” thickly blustered Alden. “Hold that man—he’s a lunatic—he must be arrested!” Half a dozen men ran to Huntley and clapped their sand-plastered hands on his shoulders and arms. { ‘ Rn. Nok B = ie GOmiicsoo S (C@