“When did you first take up art?”
“I studied some art at the Yale Art School, and a little at the Art
League. When I was a schoolboy, I was forever making sketches on the
margin of my school-books, but I never really studied it much, although
my dream was to be an artist. At nineteen, I caught the fever to go
west, and incidentally to become rich. That was my idea; art came
second. I ranched it, and got into Indian campaigns. I have always been
fond of horses and out-of-door life, and I got plenty of it there, with
every opportunity to study the rough life, the lay of the country, and
the peculiar atmosphere.”
“Mr. Remington,” I asked, “how do you get that ‘devil-may-care’ look
in the faces of your cowboys and soldiers?”
His face lighted up, and a deep twinkle came into his eyes. He glanced
across the room at just such a picture as I had described. He took his
pipe out of his mouth and laid it on the window sill.