d in the military
service of any country he is bound to be of the greatest benefit."

The truth of this Burnham was soon to prove.

In 1899 he had returned to the Klondike, and in January of 1900 had been
six months in Skagway. In that same month Lord Roberts sailed for
Cape Town to take command of the army, and with him on his staff was
Burnham's former commander, Sir Frederick, now Lord, Carrington. One
night as the ship was in the Bay of Biscay, Carrington was talking of
Burnham and giving instances of his marvellous powers as a "tracker."

"He is the best scout we ever had in South Africa!" Carrington declared.

"Then why don't we get him back there?" said Roberts.

What followed is well known.

From Gibraltar a cable was sent to Skagway, offering Burnham the
position, created especially for him, of chief of scouts of the British
army in the field.

Probably never before in the history of wars has one nation paid so
pleasant a tribute to the abilities of a man of another nation.

The sequel is interesting. The cablegram reached Skagway by the steamer
_City of Seattle_. The purser left it at the post-office, and until two
hours and a half before the steamer was listed to start on her return
trip, there it lay. Then Burnham, in asking for his mail, received it.
In two hours and a half he had his family, himself, and his belongings
on board the steamer, and had started on his half-around-the-world
journey from Alaska to Cape Town.

A Skagway paper of January 5, 1900, published the day after Burnham
sailed, throws a side light on his character. After telling of his hasty
departure the day before, and of the high compliment that had been paid
to "a prominent Skagwayan," it adds: "Although Mr. Burnham has lived in
Skagway since last August, and has been North for many months, he has
said little of his past, and few have known that he is the man famous
over the world as 'the American scout' of the Matabele wars."

Many a man who went to the Klondike did not, for reasons best known to
himself, talk about his past. But it is characteristic of Burnham that,
though he lived there two years, his associates did not know, until the
British Government snatched him from among them, that he had not always
been a prospector like themselves.

I was on the same ship that carried Burnham the latter half of his
journey, from Southampton to Cape Town, and every night for seventeen
nights was one of a group of men who shot ques