Steele himself had not been a failure at his art. There was in him no want of that sensitive temperament and dream-fire which gives the artist, like the prophet, a better sight and deeper appreciation than is accorded the generality. The only note missing was the necessity for hard application, which might have made him the master where he was satisfied to be the dilettante. The extreme cleverness of his brush had at the outset been his handicap, lulling the hard sincerity of effort with too facile results. Wealth, too, had drugged his energies, but had not crippled his abilities. If he drifted, it was because drifting in smooth seas is harmless and pleasant, not because he was unseaworthy or fearful of stormier conditions. In Saxon, he had not only recognized a greater genius, but found a friend, and with the insouciance of a graceful philosophy he reasoned it out to his own contentment. Each craft after its own uses! Saxon The cabin to which he brought his guest was itself a reflection of Steele’s whim. Fashioned by its original and unimaginative builders only as a shelter, with no thought of appearances, it remained, with its dark logs and white “chinking,” a thing of picturesque beauty. Its generous stone chimneys and wide hearths were reminders of the ancient days. Across its shingled roof, the sunlight was spotted with shadows thrown down from beeches and oaks that had been old when the Indian held the country and the buffalo gathered at the salt licks. Vines of honeysuckle and morning-glory had partly preËmpted the walls. Inside was the odd mingling of artistic junk that characterizes the den of the painter. Saxon’s enthusiasm had been growing that morning since the automobile had left the city behind and pointed its course toward the line of knobs. The twenty-mile run had been a panorama sparkling with the life of color, At last, they had ensconced themselves, and a little later Saxon emerged from the cabin disreputably clad in a flannel shirt and briar-torn, paint-spotted trousers. In his teeth, he clamped a battered briar pipe, and in his hand Steele, smoking a cigar in a hammock, looked up from an art journal at the sound of a footstep on the boards. “Did you see this?” he inquired, holding out the magazine. “It would appear that your eccentric demi-god is painting in Southern Spain. He continues to remain the recluse, avoiding the public gaze. His genius seems to be of the shrinking type. Here’s his latest sensation as it looks to the camera.” Saxon took the magazine, and studied the half-tone reproduction. “His miracle is his color,” announced the first disciple, briefly. “The black and white gives no idea. As to his personality, it seems to be that of the poseur—almost of the snob. His very penchant for frequent wanderings incognito and revealing himself only through his work is in itself a bid for publicity. He arrogates to himself the attributes of traveling royalty. For my master as the man, I have small patience. It’s the same affectation that causes him to sign nothing. The arrogant Steele laughed. “Why not show him that some one can do it?” he suggested. “Why not send over an unsigned canvas as a Marston, and drag him out of his hiding place to assert himself and denounce the impostor?” “Let him have his vanities,” Saxon said, almost contemptuously. “So long as the world has his art, what does it matter?” He turned and stepped from the low porch, whistling as he went. The stranger strolled along with a free stride and confident bearing, tempted by each vista, yet always lured on by other vistas beyond. At last, he halted near a cluster of huge boulders. Below him, the creek reflected in rippled counterpart the shimmer of overhanging greenery. Out of a tangle of undergrowth beyond reared two slender poplars. The middle distance was bright with young barley, and in the background stretched the hills in misty purple. For a time, he saw only the thing he was to paint; then, there rose before his eyes the face of a girl, and beyond it the sinister visage of the South American. His brow darkened. Always, there had lurked in the background of his thoughts a specter, some Nemesis who might at any moment come forward, bearing black reminders—possible accusations. At last, it seemed the specter had come out of the shadow, and taken the center of the stage, and in the spotlight he wore the features of SeÑor Ribero. He had intended questioning Ribero, but had hesitated. The thing had been sudden, and it is humiliating to go to a man one has never met before to learn something of one’s self, when that man has assumed an attitude almost brutally hostile from the outset. The method must first be considered, and, when early that morning he had inquired about the diplomat, it had been to learn that a night train had taken the man to his legation in There was no element of the coward’s procrastination in Saxon’s thoughts. Even his own speculation as to what the other man might have been, had never suggested the possibility that he was a craven. He held up his hand, and studied the scar. The bared forearm, under the uprolled sleeve, was as brown and steady as a sculptor’s work in bronze. Suddenly, he heard a laugh at his back, a tuneful laugh like a trill struck from a xylophone, and came to his feet with a realization of a blue gingham dress, a girlish figure, a sunbonnet and a huge cluster of dogwood blossoms. The sunbonnet and dogwood branches seemed conspiring to hide all the face except the violet eyes that looked out from them. Near by stood a fox terrier, silently and alertly regarding him, its head cocked jauntily to the side. But, even before she had lowered the dogwood blossoms enough to reveal her face, the “Do you mind my staring at you?” she demanded, innocently. “Isn’t turn-about fair play?” “But, Miss Filson,” he stammered, “I—I thought you lived in town!” “Then, George didn’t tell you that we were to be the closest sort of neighbors?” The merriment of her laugh was spontaneous. She did not confide to Saxon just why Steele’s silence struck her as highly humorous. She knew, however, that the place had originally recommended itself to its purchaser by reason of just that exact circumstance—its proximity. The man took a hasty step forward, and spoke with the brusqueness of a cross-examiner: “No. Why didn’t he tell me? He should have told me! He—” He halted abruptly, conscious that his manner was one of resentment for being led, unwarned, into displeasing surroundings, which was not at all what he meant. Then, as the radiant smile on the girl’s face—the smile such as a very little girl might have worn in the delight of perpetrating She stood, not angry, but a trifle bewildered, a trifle proud in her attitude of uptilted chin. In all her little autocratic world, her gracious friendliness had never before met anything so like rebuff. Then, having resolved, the man felt an almost boyish reaction to light-hearted gayety. It was much the same gay abandonment that comes to a man who, having faced ruin until his heart and brain are sick, suddenly decides to squander in extravagant and riotous pleasure the few dollars left in his pocket. “Of course, George should have told me,” he declared. “Why, Miss Filson, I come “From the way you greeted me,” she naÏvely observed, “one might have fancied that you’d been running away ever since we parted in Babylon and Macedon. You must be very tired.” “I am afraid of you,” he avowed. She laughed. “I know you are a woman-hater. But I was a boy myself until I was seventeen. I’ve never quite got used to being a woman, so you needn’t mind.” “Miss Filson,” he hazarded gravely, “when I saw you yesterday, I wanted to be friends with you so much that—that I ran away. Some day, I’ll tell you why.” For a moment, she looked at him with a puzzled interest. The light of a smile dies slowly from most faces. It went out of his eyes as suddenly as an electric bulb switched off, leaving the features those of a much older man. Her eyes fell on the empty canvas. “How did you happen to begin art?” she inquired. “Did you always feel it calling you?” He shook his head, then the smile came back. “A freezing cow started me,” he announced. “A what?” Her eyes were once more puzzled. “You see,” he elucidated, “I was a cow-puncher in Montana, without money. One winter, the snow covered the prairies so long that the cattle were starving at their grazing places. Usually, the breeze from the Japanese current blows off the snow from time to time, and we can graze the steers all winter on the range. This time, the Japanese current seemed to have been switched off, and they were dying on the snow-bound pastures.” “Yes,” she prompted. “But how did that—?” “You see,” he went on, “the boss wrote from Helena to know how things were going. I drew a picture of a freezing, starving cow, and wrote back, ‘This is how.’ The boss “And you made good!” she concluded, enthusiastically. “I hope to make good,” he smiled. After a pause, she said: “If you were not busy, I’d guide you to some places along the creek where there are wonderful things to see.” The man reached for his discarded hat. “Take me there,” he begged. “Where?” she demanded. “I spoke of several places.” “To any of them,” he promptly replied; “better yet, to all of them.” She shook her head dubiously. “I ought not to begin as an interruption,” she demurred. “On the contrary,” he argued confidently, “the good general first acquaints himself with his field.” An hour later, standing at a gap in a tangle |