Page:Sidnay McCall--The dragon painter2.djvu/61

 Old Kano's lip trembled. "I am not of his sort. Men call me an artist."

"Oh, an artist! Does that mean a painter of dragons, like me?"

"Among other things of earth and air I have attempted to paint dragons," said Kano.

"I paint nothing else," declared Tatsu, and seemed to lose interest in the conversation.

Kano looked hard into his face. "You say that you paint nothing else?" he challenged. "Are not these—all of them—your work, the creations of your fancy?" He reached out for the roll that Uchida had brought. His hands trembled. In his nervous excitement the papers fell, scattering broadcast over the floor.

Tatsu's dark face flashed into light. "My pictures! My pictures!" he cried aloud, like a child. "They always blow off down the mountain!"

Kano picked up a study at random. It was of a mountain tarn lying quiet in the sun. Trees in a windless silence sprang