and, when the view was not focused into the thickness of
woodland interiors, it offered leagues of yellow fields and tender
meadows stretching off to soberer woods in the distance. Back of all
that were the hills, going up from the joyous sparkle of the middle
distance to veiled purple where they met the bluest of skies. Saxon's
fingers had been tingling for a brush to hold and his lids had been
unconsciously dropping, that his eyes might appraise the colors in
simplified tones and values.

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 he carried an equally battered
sketching-easel and paint-box.

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 confidence that no one can counterfeit his
stroke, that signature is superfluous."

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
cr