es screamed in the fissures. We clung to the
scrub-pines and the sa-sa grass for safety."

"I can see it all. I can feel it," whispered old Kano.

"We wished to descend, but knew no way. I shouted for aid. The others
shouted many times. Then from the very midst of tumult came a
youth,--half god, half beast, with wild eyes peering at us, and hair
that tossed like the angry clouds."

"Yes, yes," urged Kano, straining forward.

"We scrambled toward him, and he shrank back into the mist. We called,
beseeching help. The workmen thought him a young sennin, and falling
on their knees, began to pray. Then the youth approached us more
deliberately, and, when we asked for guidance, led us by a secluded
path down into a mountain village."

"And you think,--you think that this marvellous youth," began Kano,
eagerly; then broke off with a gesture of despair. "I must not
believe, I must not believe," he muttered.

Ando's hand was once more on the roll of papers. He went on smoothly.
"We questioned of him in the village. He is a foundling. None knows
his parentage. From childhood he has made pictures upon rocks, and
sand beds, and the inner bark of trees. He wanders for days together
among the peaks, and declares that he is searching for his mate, a
Dragon Princess, withheld from him by enchantment. Naturally the
village people think him mad. But they are kind to him. They give him
food and clothing, and sometimes sheets of paper, like these here."
With affected unconcern he raised the long roll. "Yes, they give him
paper, with real ink and brushes. Then he leaps up the mountain side
and paints and paints for hours, like a demon. But as soon as he has
eased his soul of a sketch he lets the first gust of wind blow it away."

Kano was now shivering in his place. On his wrinkled face a light
dawned. "Shall I believe? Oh, Ando, indeed I could not bear it now!
Unroll those drawings before I go mad!"

Uchida deliberately spread out the first. It was a scene of mountain
storm, painted as in an elemental fury. Inky pine branches slashed and
hurled upward, downward, and across a tortured gray sky. A cloud-rack
tore the void like a Valkyrie's cry made visible. One huge talon of
lightning clutched at the flying scud.

Kano gave a glance, covered his face, and began to sob. Uchida blew
his nose on the pink-bordered foreign handkerchief. After a long while
the old man whispered, "What name shall I use in my p