The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-11-30
YELLOW JIM.
By MARTHA M'oULLooH WILLIAMS.
Copyright, 1895, by the Author.]
CHAPTER [.

The house at Summerlands was tall
and square, with the low roof of wide
piazza cutting the front of it horizon
tally i'll two. All the bare upper space
was thickly beset with windows. The
house sat facing west. In summer sun
sets every window famed out bloody
eye.
The blood red was fading into dusk
as Sheriff Smith stood upon the piazza,
sorrowfully shaking his gray head. Tall,
lean, why, there was strife amount
ing to contradiction between his iron
mouth and his kindly, weather narrow
ed eyes. He stood with one hand, brown
and sinewy, clutching the muzzle of his
double barreled gun, the other laid
lightly upon the shoulder of his prison
or, who writhed under the touch, for all
the kindness of it.
He was as tall as the sheriff, as lean,
too, but with the greyhound's thorough
bred leanness Even standing at rest
you could not help but see how lithely
supple was his strength, how deep his
chest, how superb his swelling muscle.
He had the finest thin olive skin, with
no stain of color save at the lips. They
were thin and firm and showed vital
scarlet under the fringe of silky mus
tache, black as was the fine, soft hair
lying SO lightly upon his head.
Just back of him stood the sheriff s
posse, behind them, framed in the wide
doorway, slim woman in white
gown, with eyes like dewy violets with
lurid light behind them. She was pale
"a creamy pallor such as shows in the
camellia's heart. With her lids dropped
you said involuntarily, here is saint,
unless, indeed, you saw her smile; then
something more Of the eyes lambert
flame lowered and wavered about her
clear, pink lips.
Mrs. Carroll Austin, it had been
whispered the county through ever
since her wedding day, was a born
worker Of charms. The whisper, of
course, was a mighty well hushed one.
The Anstins shot straight and had ,
habit of answering with bullet any
slnr upon their womankind, particu.
larly Carroll Austin, last of the name,
in the laws eye last of the race. The
law, yo1neee, could take no account
of Yellod Jim, though all the world
knew that he was his masters half
brother and saw that the two were in
face, voice, stature and speech almost
exact counterparts. Jim was the elder
by IS months. His mother died when
ls,x he oil fo1Iy III ~
heartbreak because Carroll's mother
was just brought home bride. She was
q barbaric beauty, although she had
barely an eighth of African blood.
There had been suggestion Of the palm
tree and the desert in her flexible length,
the warm languor Of her eyes.
None of this came to the little lad
left motherless. Except for the peculiar
blue white of the eyes and some trif1ing
stain under the nails-things which per-
sist through 20 generations-he was all
Austin, and no discredit to the race. He
grew up in the house, was Carroll's
playfellow and protector throughout
his first five years and after that his
companion in every boyish sport. When
Carroll was sent to college, Jim went
along as sort Of guardian angel The
two had studied together always. So it
is not strange that the slave lad got very
nearly as much out of the college course
as did his young master.
His old one meant to set him free
and send him abroad The tie between
them was not the less strong that it was
unacknowledged. But Jim would have
none of freedom that took him away
from home and friends Folks outside
said that was not wonderful, seeing that
he did exactly as he pleased, and was,
even before Squire Austin S death, more
master of Summerlands than it's legal
owner.
Carroll had loved Jim next to the
honor Of the Austins until he met the
dewy fire of Lisette Weir's eyes. The
Wooing took week, the wedding a
month. Perhaps the new Mrs. Austin
loved her husband supremely. Certainly
she was of those women who love in
suitably ali mems love.
That was five years back, and those
who looked to the heart Of things won
dered that the tragedy had been SO long
in coming. Tt had come at last in de-
cent Austin fashion. Handsome Charley
Clayton had for three years past dangled
at Mrs Austin's apron strings, yet her
name was Lot mentioned in the quarrel
between him and her husband. 1t was
purely political, all admitted, as they
also admitted that in shooting him
Carroll Austin had done murder in the
first degree.
Yet after it he had ridden home un-
checked and in no hot speed. Sheriff
Smith had overtaken him just outside
his own gate and had permitted him to
go in for last word with his wife,
though his better Judgment said it was
a hazardous thing to do.
He had left the town behind him
pulsing with the thrill of vengeance.
The very air was threat. It was court
day, with half the county thronging the
streets. Still it was impossible to deny
the one plea of a prisoner who might
easily have defied the law, to which III
Sfaad he submitted with Such Oroca ac