"Look at that picture," I commanded, pointing to a third decoration. "It means something. Tell me what it means to you." He studied it for several minutes. "The little girl is sick," he said finally. "That is the doctor looking at her. They have been up all night--see, the oil is low in the lamp, the first morning light is coming in at the window. It is a great sickness; maybe she will die, that is why the doctor looks so hard. That is the mother. It is a great sickness, because the mother's head is on the table and she is crying." "How do you know she is crying?" I interrupted. "You cannot see her face. Perhaps she is asleep." Sitka Charley looked at me in swift surprise, then back at the picture. It was evident that he had not reasoned the impression. "Perhaps she is asleep," he repeated. He studied it closely. "No, she is not asleep. The shoulders show that she is not asleep. I 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 night. You see a cabin. The window is lighted. You look through the window for one second, or for two seconds, you see something, and you go on your way. You saw maybe a man writing a letter. You saw something without beginning or end. Nothing happened. Yet it was a bit of life you saw. You remember it afterward. It is like a picture in your memory. The window is the frame of the picture." I could see that he was interested, and I knew that as I spoke he had looked through the window and seen the man writing the letter. "There is a picture you have painted that I understand," he said. "It is a true picture. It has much meaning. It is in your cabin at Dawson. It is a faro table. There are men playing. It is a large game. The limit is off."