ine
years after his marriage Burnham continued his career as sheriff, scout,
mining prospector. And in 1893, when Burnham and his brother-in-law,
Ingram, started for South Africa, Mrs. Burnham went with them, and
in every part of South Africa shared her husband's life of travel and
danger.

In making this move across the sea, Burnham's original idea was to look
for gold in the territory owned by the German East African Company. But
as in Rhodesia the first Matabele uprising had broken out, he continued
on down the coast, and volunteered for that campaign. This was the real
beginning of his fortunes. The "war" was not unlike the Indian fighting
of his early days, and although the country was new to him, with
the kind of warfare then being waged between the Kaffirs under King
Lobengula and the white settlers of the British South Africa Company,
the chartered company of Cecil Rhodes, he was intimately familiar.

It does not take big men long to recognize other big men, and Burnham's
remarkable work as a scout at once brought him to the notice of Rhodes
and Dr. Jameson, who was personally conducting the campaign. The war was
their own private war, and to them, at such a crisis in the history of
their settlement, a man like Burnham was invaluable.

The chief incident of this campaign, the fame of which rang over all
Great Britain and her colonies, was the gallant but hopeless stand made
by Major Alan Wilson and his patrol of thirty-four men. It was Burnham's
attempt to save these men that made him known from Buluwayo to Cape
Town.

King Lobengula and his warriors were halted on one bank of the Shangani
River, and on the other Major Forbes, with a picked force of three
hundred men, was coming up in pursuit. Although at the moment he did
not know it, he also was being pursued by a force of Matabeles, who were
gradually surrounding him. At nightfall Major Wilson and a patrol of
twelve men, with Burnham and his brother-in-law, Ingram, acting as
scouts, were ordered to make a dash into the camp of Lobengula and, if
possible, in the confusion of their sudden attack, and under cover of a
terrific thunder-storm that was raging, bring him back a prisoner.

With the king in their hands the white men believed the rebellion would
collapse. To the number of three thousand the Matabeles were sleeping in
a succession of camps, through which the fourteen men rode at a gallop.
But in the darkness it was difficult to distinguish the trek