Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

B32 particular impression on him, and he was minded to return the picture when it oc- curred to him that common politeness re- quired him to give it more than a passing glance. He looked at it again, and as he did so a vague suspicion that he had seen that countenance before came to him. He studied it more carefully. Suddenly Kemp caught his breath, and with difficulty smothered an exclamation of mingled amazement and horror. He did recognize it! The man he had in mind had changed greatly since the photograph was taken, but beyond the shadow of a doubt, it was his portrait that Kemp now held in his hand. The husband of Alice Carter was the drunken sot he was going down- stream to arrest. The man who stood be- tween him and the woman he loved was none other than Calvin Hubbard! IV. CoNSTABLE PETER Kemp needed every bit of histrionic ability he possessed to keep from betraying his emotion as he continued to study the photograph of Calvin Carter, alias Calvin Hubbard. What a change had come over the man since it was taken! The picture showed a young man, hand- some, debonair, clear-skinned, clean-shaven, with wavy hair. Now Hubbard, as he re- membered seeing him a month previously, was wrinkled and shrunken, his face was covered with a dirty beard, his eyes were red and bleary, his lips flabby and tobacco- stained. Kemp wondered if Alice would recognize Hubbard if she gave him merely a casual glance, without any thought that he might be her husband, and he doubted it. His own keen eyes, trained to penetrate dis- guises, had come within a hair’s breadth of failing to perceive that Carter and Hub- bard were one and the same person. Kemp did not, at the moment, stop to consider whether he should, or should not, make Alice acquainted with the startling fact that he had discovered. Since his dis- covery would cause her pain, he kept the knowledge of it from her as instinctively as he would have interposed his body between her and the attack of a timber wolf. He ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. handed back the photograph without a word. _ To his immense relief Alice replaced it in her suit case without making any comment other than, “I didn’t think you would rec- ognize it.” Kemp picked up his hat. “ Please don’t worry while I’m gone,’ he said. ‘I don’t think there’s one chance in a hundred that your husband will show up. I'll be back again to-morrow or the day after.” “To-morrow, please—if you can,” she told him. Kemp held her hand for a few brief sec- onds as he bade her good-by, then he pro- ceeded down the rocky path to where his motor boat was moored, his mind a whirl- ing chaos of indecision. He loosed his craft, started the engine, and pointed its nose down the river toward Hay Creek. Regardless of how he would solve his per- sonal problem, his duty was clear. He had orders to bring in Calvin Hubbard, and bring him in he would. As his high-powered boat sped toward the derelict who stood between him and the woman he loved Kemp set himself grimly to the task- of deciding whether he should bring Hubbard and Alice together or keep them apart. An unprincipled man, he reflected, would decide immediately to keep them apart. Even to Kemp, with his strict code of honor, the temptation to do so was keen. He pondered the different methods by which he could make it impossible for Hub- bard to go to Alice. He could frighten the fellow into taking to the woods for an in- definite period, he could twist the evidence against him so he would receive a prison sentence that would keep him in jail until she left Alberta, or he could get rid of Hub- bard finally and forever by adopting more desperate methods. Kemp realized, with a start, where this line of thought was lead- ing him, and he shut it out of his mind. In the end he decided that, regardless of consequence to himself, he would do nothing to prevent Hubbard from meeting Alice. With that question disposed of, another and more difficult one confronted him. comicloool C©