Transcriber’s Note:
This transcription into digital form attempts to remaintrue to the original except for punctuation marks that have been suppliedwhere missing.
The cover image has been produced by thesubmitter for the e-reader editions of this e-text. It is released intothe public domain.
THE
YELLOW HOUSE
MASTER OF MEN
P. F. COLLIER & SON
By C. H. Doscher & Co.
Copyright 1912
By P. F. Collier & Son
MASTER OF MEN
Upward in long sinuous bends the road woundits way into the heart of the hills. The man,steadily climbing to the summit, changed handsupon the bicycle he was pushing, and wiped thesweat from his grimy forehead. It had been agray morning when he had left, with no promiseof this burst of streaming sunshine. Yet thesteep hill troubled him but little—he steppedblithely forward with little sign of fatigue.
His workman’s clothes, open at the throat,showed him the possessor of a magnificent pairof shoulders; the suggestion of great physicalstrength was carried out also in his hard, clean-cutfeatures and deep-set, piercing gray eyes. Hepassed a grove where the ground was blue withbudding hyacinths, and he loitered for a moment,leaning upon the saddle of his bicycle, and gazingup the sunlit glade. A line or two of Keatssprang to his lips. As he uttered them a transfiguringchange swept across his face, still blackin patches, as though from grimy labor. Hishard, straight mouth relaxed into a very pleasantcurve, a softer light flashed in his steely eyes.
He reached a wooden gate at last on his right-handside, and, pushing it open, skirted a stonewall until he came to a sudden dip in the field,and with its back against a rocky eminence, a tinycottage built of the stones which lay in heapsabout the turf. He leaned his bicycle against thewall, and, taking a key from his pocket, unlockedthe door.
“Saturday at last,” he exclaimed aloud.“Thirty-six hours of freedom. Phew!”
He had plunged a basin into the soft-water tankoutside and held his head in it for a moment.Then, all