The Key to Yesterday

triumphs through the world of art, and he has left th

y in the semi-solitude of the verandah at the back of the club-house. Though he had a hopeless cause of his

nterested and ready to assume this stranger's defense

in the tracks of another. Of course," he hastened to defend, "that is hardly a valid indictment. Every master is, at the beginning of his career, strongly affected by the genius of some greater master. The only mistake lies in following i

rought him from lethal obscurity to international fame; how, though a strictly American product who had no

e crowding out through the gates, Saxon heard his

to meet," explained Mr. Bellton, the prospective host. "He is one Se?or Rib

claration of pleasure to that of his host. He was, however, silent to taciturnity as Steele's runabout chugged its way along in the parade of motors and c

t, "for a run out the Boulevard; I

cape ordinarily challenged Saxon's interest to

the southerly brow of the ridge from which the eye sweeps a radius of twenty miles over purpled hills and polychromatic valleys, t

ed hillside fell away, three hundred feet of precipitous slope and tangle. For a time, Saxon's eyes were busy

scape. I caught the idea that we were to lead a sort of camp-life-that we were to be hermits except for the companionship of our

e lau

ty miles." He pointed off across the farthest dim ridge to the south

s a touch of anxious

impatient?"

though the breeze across the hilltops was fresh with the coming of eveni

man, I'm

le vanished. Evidently, he was talking with a man who was s

ay with drawn brow, then he began with a shor

al companions," he said slowly, "there need be

le n

overed a common love of paintin

in bowed h

and words to safeguard against any betrayal into sudden outburst. "As long as it's merely you and I, George, we know enoug

t hotly. "I don't ask my frie

but persiste

months ago. What, in God's

looked up,

e did know, he stopped, and added lamely: "I know that you are a l

hat I am on the side, preacher, porch-climber, bank-robber-w

do you

r example-well such people as I met to-day-you have the right to ask;

entuckian halted i

ds, "that God Almighty only knows who

ty was alien to him. In the same measure that all his physical bents were straight and clean-cut, so he had been mentally a contradiction of the mor

he face of self-conviction of lun

on a Western range; that I drifted East, and took up art. Did I ever tell you one word of my life prior to that? Do you kn

rled roots and twisted hole of a scrub oak that hung out ov

other say, "you d

ere bright in the reflection that the western sky threw across the circle of the horizon. Alr

e other work convulsively, though the lips

e. R. A. Saxon, Robert Anglo Saxon or Robert Anonymous Saxon-take

prompte

times-not often, only when she is preternaturally cruel-plays on m

only

I was a man without identity. I don't know why I was in the Rocky Mountains. I don't know what occurred there, but I do know that I wa

rusty key, evidently fitt

behind that door. I only know that it is in a fashion the key that can open my p

e thing, and Saxon mechanically

hand was not fresh when those many others w

specialists who tried methods of suggestion. Men talked to me of various things: sought in a hundred ways to stimulate memory, but the reminder never came. Sometimes, it would seem that I w

listening while the narrator

e, I did not have to relearn to read and write. All the purely impersonal things gradually retrieved themsel

ift into art?"

I had no compass, no port of departure or destin

ie the way of his teaching. By that time, I had acquired some little efficiency and local reputation. He told me that Marston was the master for me t

Saxon. You have made yourself from unknown material, but you have made yourself a great

d emphasis of a man who will not evade,

not searching for me. Why, man, I may have been a criminal. I have no way of knowing. I

came in agi

the mountain seemed to soothe me into sanity, and give me a grip on myself. The starlight in my face during nights spent in the saddle-that was soothing; it was medicine for my sick brain. These things at least made me physical

m glad you did. I and my friends are willing to gauge you

nd his eyes wore an expr

I'd like my own name over me-and both dates, birth as well as death. My work is, of course, to learn it a

poke eagerly. "How

six

olute disappearance gives a man legal death. Let the old problem

r shook

nothing. If I discover responsibilities su

the physic

ume where it was closed; perhaps, it will never open. To-morrow morning, I may awaken Robert Saxon-or the other m

cranked the machine. As he stra

fer calling of

a chance on my remaining myself until af

ised Steele, "we