Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1919)

78 The Poppy Girl's Husband dazed. Slowly a subtle change, a sinister awakening came, revealing the hardened, reckless criminal of ten years ago, only now his natural good nature was replaced by a savageness which presaged a terrible vengeance. It was for a false woman that he had spent all those years in solitary confinement. Anxiously pleading with Hairpin Harry not to commit murder, Boston Blackie poured forth the story of the betrayal. The Poppy Girl and her cop husband still lived in San Francisco ; they had even used his money left in the bank. Although Blackie succeeded in persuading the embittered man to think it over, the latter recklessly refused to lead the "honest life" or to regard his parole. But finally grief over the loss of the woman he worshiped overwhelmed him, and so he came back home to San Francisco. Nightfall found Hairpin Harry and Boston Blackie at Mother McGinn's hotel, the Frisco mecca of West Coast crooks. Excitement was rife in the underworld of the Barbary Coast. Hairpin Harry was out. What would he do? Would he exact a just and terrible revenge? It was apparent that he would, for when Big Mike McCafferty's bulky frame appeared in the bar of the hotel Boston Blackie had his hands full restraining Hairpin Harry from instant violence. Big Mike McCafferty was the heavy-jowled, burly, fighting type. His stock in trade was brute strength and a crude knowledge of criminals and their habits. He was decent enough according to his own standards, but of the kind that believes anything is fair enough in dealing with crooks. There was an interested witness of the little drama. It was the Montana Kid, just in from Salt Lake with his "yegg mob." He was looking for a good outside man with a steady trigger finger. He knew that the cop didn't live who could take Hairpin Harry alive then. And Harry promised faithfully to join him in two weeks. At the home of Polly, the Poppy Girl, now Mrs. Mike McCafferty, a great and growing fear dominated the days of the guilty woman. Hairpin Harry was out at last, and she feared retribution. In the stepfather's home Hairpin Harry's ten-year-old son, Donald, a sturdy, manly little chap, enjoyed little love. Big Mike had gruffly ordered her to forget Harry and "his kid." But the merciless vengeance of the crook world hung like a scimitar over her head, and the terrified woman could not forget. As the days trailed by Hairpin Harry became more and more of a mystery to the Montana Kid and the crooks. They grew impatient at the delay. Hairpin Harry spent most of his time in his hotel room endlessly working on a peculiar copper plate. Why, nobody knew ; just something he had picked up in prison, he explained. But in the daytime Hairpin Harry loitered near a certain public school. And at last his vigilance was rewarded when he feasted his hungry eyes upon the boy he knew to be his son. One day, when he had mustered his courage, Hairpin Harry struck up an odd friendship with his little boy. Donald had an Indian cave in a near-by park. After assuring the boy that he used to go hunting with an Indian chief, Hairpin Harry was invited over to play. They gravely danced their war dances and then they smoked the pipe of peace. The boy thought the man was the most wonderful playmate, while in his happiness the man had forgotten the ten years he spent in prison and the wife who betrayed him. He could hardly believe his good luck as he daringly promised the little chap to be there the next day at the same time. And so every day Hairpin Harry went to the cave in the park to play with the "big chief," his little boy.