MY BUNKIE _By Charles Schreyvogel_ THE CALL OF THE FLUTE _By E. Irving Couse_ THE SILENCE BROKEN _By George de F. Brush_ AN ARGUMENT WITH THE SHERIFF _By W. R. Leigh_ [Illustration] THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS · JUNE 15, 1915 Entered at the Post-office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter. Copyright, 1915, by The Mentor Association, Inc. The present generation has taken its pictures of life in the Far West mainly through the paintings of such artists as Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, Charles Schreyvogel, and others who will be referred to in this article. And yet two of these men--Remington and Schreyvogel--who were our contemporaries are already dead, and it was only about eighty-four years ago that the first American artists went to the land of the setting sun to paint the Indian in his native lair. This artist was a young Philadelphian named George Catlin, a lawyer by profession, who was born in 1796 and died in 1872. Though trained for the bar, his artistic tendencies were too strong for him. He set forth in 1830, with practically no knowledge of the technic of art, going as a guest of Governor Clark of St. Louis, then United States superintendent of Indian affairs. Governor Clark went for the purpose of arranging treaties with the Winnebagos, Menominees, Shawanos, Foxes, and others, and the opportunities for young Catlin were unusual. CATLIN AND CARY, THE PIONEER PAINTERS [Illustration: ONE OF CATLIN’S INDIANS] A second trip the next season inspired Catlin to still a third, in 1832, when he ascended the Missouri on a steamer, to the mouth of the Yellowstone. He returned some two thousand miles in a canoe with a companion, and on the trip sketches were made of the Crows, Blackfeet, Sioux, and Iowas. It was all a revelation to Catlin, who made a serious study of the savage as far as his artistic equipment permitted. Subsequent trips followed, and in 1836 he accompanied a detachment of the first regiment of Mounted Dragoons to the Comanches and other tribes. These visits of course were at a time when the Indians were in a primitive and picturesque condition, before the change that was to come subsequently through association with the whites. The result was an enormous collection of drawings and paintings, together with many written accounts and descriptions of manners and customs, and for years Catlin reigned supreme in a field that no one had hitherto explored.