pecimens and nothing else. Now you can take
it or leave it--that's final."

The elderly German paused before replying, the two men searching each
other's faces quietly. As most people have it, the famous Dr. Gross von
Hofe was a "taxidermist." The average "stuffer," the man who simply
covers and replaces the bones of the specimen with excelsior or cotton,
is properly named taxidermist, but von Hofe was an artist, known the
world over for his wonderful work. In various museums of the world you
may see his models, signed like the masterpieces of other artists, of
rare and disappearing animals from the distant quarters of the earth,
frozen in action, with the setting of the trees, grass, sand or water of
their native haunts.

The other, somewhat younger than the famous artist in skin and bone, was
an American of German descent--Louis Schoverling. He was one of that
little class of world-wanderers, who have barely enough money to carry
them about the earth's strange places, hunting and exploring, gradually
pushing the frontier of civilization back into the savage quarters of
the world, and most happy when self-dependent and forced to rely on gun
or hook for a day's meal.

So when Dr. von Hofe was commissioned by two celebrated museums to visit
East Africa and secure for each a family group of elephants--tusker
bull, calf, and cow--it was natural that he should come to the New York
Explorers' Club for a helper and guide. There he had picked on Louis
Schoverling--or "the General," as his fellow-explorers had laughingly
dubbed him after the failure of a certain South American revolution--to
take him to the tuskers. Dr. von Hofe was not a hunter and he knew it.
So Schoverling had agreed to go, not for the money in the trip, but for
the excitement of it.

"I see," returned the big German at last, "why your comrades call you
'the General.' You are right. You shall take whom you like, und if I say
you are crazy as a loon, it makes no difference. You are satisfied?"

"Quite," laughed the American. "When do we start?"

"Three weeks from to-day," returned the other, whose English was perfect
save in moments of excitement. "I have a group to finish for the
Metropolitan here. Then we go."

"All right. I'll meet you up here three weeks from to-day, with my
friends, at twelve sharp."

Such was the interesting prelude to the letter which came to Charlie
Collins at Calgary, Canada, five days later. Charlie was one of the boys
who