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Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916

"Real Soldiers of Fortune"

As
an explorer in the last few years in the course of his expeditions
into undiscovered lands, he has added to this little world many
thousands of square miles.
Personally, Burnham is as unlike the scout of fiction, and of the
Wild West Show, as it is possible for a man to be. He possesses no
flowing locks, his talk is not of "greasers," "grizzly b'ars," or
"pesky redskins." In fact, because he is more widely and more
thoroughly informed, he is much better educated than many who
have passed through one of the "Big Three" universities, and his
English is as conventional as though he had been brought up on the
borders of Boston Common, rather than on the borders of
civilization.
In appearance he is slight, muscular, bronzed; with a finely formed
square jaw, and remarkable light blue eyes. These eyes apparently
never leave yours, but in reality they see everything behind you
and about you, above and below you. They tell of him that one
day, while out with a patrol on the veldt, he said he had lost the
trail and, dismounting, began moving about on his hands and
knees, nosing the ground like a bloodhound, and pointing out a
trail that led back over the way the force had just marched. When
the commanding officer rode up, Burnham said:
"Don't raise your head, sit. On that kopje to the right there is a
commando of Boers.


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