In those
years he has trained himself to endure the most appalling fatigues,
hunger, thirst, and wounds; has subdued the brain to infinite
patience, has learned to force every nerve in his body to absolute
obedience, to still even the beating of his heart. Indeed, than
Burnham no man of my acquaintance to my knowledge has
devoted himself to his life's work more earnestly, more honestly,
and with such single-mindedness of purpose. To him scouting is as
exact a study as is the piano to Paderewski, with the result that
to-day what the Pole is to other pianists, the American is to all
other "trackers," woodmen, and scouts. He reads "the face of
Nature" as you read your morning paper. To him a movement of
his horse's ears is as plain a warning as the "Go SLOW" of an
automobile sign; and he so saves from ambush an entire troop. In
the glitter of a piece of quartz in the firelight he discovers King
Solomon's mines. Like the horned cattle, he can tell by the smell of
it in the air the near presence of water, and where, glaring in the
sun, you can see only a bare kopje, he distinguishes the muzzle of
a pompom, the crown of a Boer sombrero, the levelled barrel of a
Mauser. He is the Sherlock Holmes of all out-of-doors.
Besides being a scout, he is soldier, hunter, mining expert, and
explorer. Within the last ten years the educated instinct that as a
younger man taught him to follow the trail of an Indian, or the
"spoor" of the Kaffir and the trek wagon, now leads him as a
mining expert to the hiding-places of copper, silver, and gold, and,
as he advises, great and wealthy syndicates buy or refuse tracts of
land in Africa and Mexico as large as the State of New York.
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