have seen the shoulders of a woman who cried. The mother is
crying. It is a very great sickness."

"And now you understand the picture," I cried.

He shook his head, and asked, "The little girl - does it die?"

It was my turn for silence.

"Does it die?" he reiterated. "You are a painter-man. Maybe you
know."

"No, I do not know," I confessed.

"It is not life," he delivered himself dogmatically. "In life
little girl die or get well. Something happen in life. In picture
nothing happen. No, I do not understand pictures."

His disappointment was patent. It was his desire to understand all
things that white men understand, and here, in this matter, he
failed. I felt, also, that there was challenge in his attitude.
He was bent upon compelling me to show him the wisdom of pictures.
Besides, he had remarkable powers of visualization. I had long
since learned this. He visualized everything. He saw life in
pictures, felt life in pictures, generalized life in pictures; and
yet he did not understand pictures when seen through other men's
eyes and expressed by those men with color and line upon canvas.

"Pictures are bits of life," I said. "We paint life as we see it.
For instance, Charley, you are coming along the trail. It is