tongs for more than a century and a half. His
mind is full of poetry, and his conceptions of the earth and sky are
beautiful. He knows little that white men know, and cares for very
little that the white man fights for, but his mind teems with lore of
the mysterious universe into which he has been thrust, and which he has
studied for seventy-two years. In the eyes of God, I am persuaded there
is no very wide difference between old Crawling Elk and Herbert
Spencer. The circle of Spencer's knowledge is wider, but it is as far
from including the infinite as the redman's story of creation. Could you
understand the old man as I do, you would forget his rags. He would loom
large in the mysterious gloom of life. Your painting is as prejudiced in
its way as the description which a cowboy would give you of this old
man. You have given the color, the picturesque qualities of your
subjects, but you have forgotten that they are human souls, groping for
happiness and light."

As he went on, Elsie stared at the picture fixedly, and it changed under
her glance till his deeply passionate words seemed written on the
canvas. The painting ceased to be a human face and became a mechanical
setting together of features, a clever delineation of the exterior of a
ragged old man holding a beaded tobacco-pouch and a long red pipe.

"This old 'beggar,'" Curtis continued, "never lights that pipe you have
put in his hands without blowing a whiff to the great spirits seated at
the cardinal points of the compass. He makes offerings for the health of
his children--he hears voices in the noon-day haze. He sits on the
hill-top at dawn to commune with the spirits over his head. As a beggar
he is picturesque; as a man, he is bewildered by the changes in his
world, and sad with the shadow of his children's future. All these
things, and many more, you must learn before you can represent the soul
of the redman. You can't afford to be unjust."

She was deeply affected by his words. They held conceptions new to her.
But his voice pierced her, strangely subdued her. It quivered with an
emotion which she could not understand. Why should he care so much
whether she painted her subjects well or ill? She was seized with
sudden, bitter distrust.

"I wish I had not shown you my studies," she said, resentfully.

His face became anxious, his voice gentle. "I beg your pardon; I have
presumed too far. I hope, Miss Brisbane, you will not take what I say
too much to h