Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

834 “ How long in jail he get for that?” ““Two or three months probably.” “Only two, three months?” “Yes. Why?” The woman’s tone had been repressed as though she controlled strong emotion with diffrculty. Now she cast her repression aside and blazed out like a volcano. “ Because—damn him—I want him get two, three year!’’ She stamped her foot and shook her fist. ‘“ The dog! He get drunk; he beat me; he tear up furniture, he treat me—me that was educate in school—like I am dirt under the foot! I hate him—I hate that loafer, liar, no-good —I hope to God he get hung!” She flung out her arm to indicate the disordered cabin. “ He bring me here with nice talk —say he marry me soon when he get rid of damn woman he left in States—then he tell me I am loose girl because I live with him and he will never marry me. I call him dirty dog and he raise the rough house. You see?” ‘Yes, I see,’ said Kemp. ‘I am sorry. But he’ll let you alone for a while now.” “You bet he let me lone. He don’t and I stick him with knife!” She indicated with a savage gesture how she would handle Hubbard. “I hang mebbe, but what I care?” Kemp spoke soothingly. ‘“ Tut, tut,” he said. He’ll treat you right when he gets out of jail. Ill tell him a thing or two. You leave it to me. The redcoat is your friend —see?” “ Redcoat all right—yes. don’t—”’ She did not finish the sentence. A moc- casined footstep sounded outside, the door opened, and Calvin Hubbard lurched into the cabin. But if he V. HusBBarD caught sight of Kemp’s red coat and stood stock still, his expression of weak viciousness frozen on his face. For a moment neither man spoke. Kemp was studying the fellow. Yes, Hubbard was the man in the photograph; he was the legal husband of the woman he loved. The resemblance was clear enough “You won’t need to stick Hubbard.. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. —but not so clear that Alice Carter would be sure to perceive it if her attention was not directed to it. What a specimen the fellow was—dirty, dressed in rags, his un- combed hair and beard making him look twenty years older than he was! Kemp regarded him with mingled pity and dis- gust. “You’re going up the river with me, Hubbard,” he announced. ‘ You’re want- ed for stealing things out of a store when the storekeeper wasn’t looking —a pretty low crime for a man who once was white.” “ All—all right,” Hubbard acquiesced meekly. “ No use trying to fight you red coats. When do we start?” rT 4 Now.”’ Without paying any more attention to the Indian woman who had thrown in her lot with him than if she had been a wooden post, the husband of Alice Carter packed some of his poor belongings in a canvas bag. “ Aren’t you going to say good-by to your housekeeper?” Kemp questioned sharply as Hubbard moved toward the door. Hubbard looked at the woman who stood motionless and speechless but with unholy glee dancing in her eyes. “That dirty squaw?” he said. should I?” Kemp gave the man a look of supreme contempt, then turned to the woman. “You'll be able to get along all right while he’s gone, won’t you?” he asked. “‘ For sure, yes. An’ if he wise, he won’t come back.” Kemp told Hubbard to march then. They proceeded to his motor boat and started up stream. A feeling of dread took gradual posses- sion of Kemp as they approached closer and closer to Hopeless Homestead. The possibility that this poor wretch at his feet might some day stand in front of Alice Car- ter and be acknowledged by her as the man she had chosen for her life’s mate aroused in him emotions that he had never felt be- fore. Primitive impulses rose up from his subconscious ego and cried aloud to him to put out of his pathway this unworthy ob- stacle to his happiness. Strange atavistic “ Why comicloool C©