See fee! COUT ——- + + ROBERT WATSON F.R.G.S. | Author of “My Brave and Gallant Gentleman’, and many other best sellers. Canadian Author and Press Correspondent Inferviows Major Frederick Russell Burnham, D.S.O., and Obtains a First-hand Story of the Thrilling Exploits of This Daring and Intrepid Telegraph Runner, Indian Scout and Dashing Soldier THO IS THE greatest scout in history? me will say R. S. Baden Powell of South frican fame, others will pool for W. S. ody, “Buffalo Bill” These men were both eat scouts—English and American—but, sthaps, the palm should go to one who is actically unknown to the younger people this era: an American of English descent id none other than Major Frederick Rus- 1 Burnham, D.S.O., Chief of Scouts ider Lord Roberts in the Boer War and campaigner in both America and South frica for many years before that. In Los Angeles, on the third floor of a ige office building, there is an office door aring the legend “Burnham Exploration ompany.” Inside this office recently, I id the great pleasure of meeting a hero ~my own boyhood days, one who is now 1 elderly gentleman of 84 years. I found m to be of considerably less than even edium height, with gray hair and bright, eely-blue, trustful eyes. Major Burnham wns and supervises the operations of this | exploration company and, to look at hin, 1e would say, “A business man all his life!” ut what a thrilling drama of adventures nong Indians, cowboys, frontier police, fatabele warriors, Zulus and Boers has sen the experience of this modest, quiet id business-like gentleman, friend of the te Empire builder, Cecil Rhodes, the late ord Grey, Lord Roberts, Lord Milner, eneral Sir Robert S. Baden Powell and resident Theodore Roosevelt; of Richard larding Davis, Sir Rider Haggard and old olonel Cody, “Buffalo Bill” himself. Times without number, Major Burnham roved himself as dashing, fearless and -afty a scout as ever rode horseback or ormed on his stomach through the sleep- \g encampments of cruel savages whose reatest delight would have been to roast im over a slow fire or push wood splinters own through the quicks of his finger-nails, nd laugh and taunt at his dying agonies. All this sounds like something out of the ng, long ago, but the man who incurred ist such dangers as these still lives and njoys his life to the full. Fred Burnham was born two years before 1e American Indian War of 1862, and his rst adventure then almost proved his last. The Indians were on the warpath, sweep- ig everything before them, burning, tortur- 1g, slaying men, women and children with- ‘HIRTEENTH EDITION of Other Days. out discrimination. The Burnham outpost home lay directly in the path of the raiders. The little family and their friends were there practically defenceless. Burnham’s father, himself a splendid scout and a gallant gentleman, made a rapid race, a distance of 20 miles, to a place called-Man- kota, in the hope of obtaining powder and shot with which to protect his little family. During his absence, baby Burnham remained Frederick R. Burnham all unknowing and unrealizing of the danger, alone in the care of his mother. A red glare in the north told ‘only too clearly that the Indians were coming, carry- ing with them death and worse on their . way, and word came that at a place called New Ulm, 300 men, women and children had just been put to torture and slain. LeAvES BABy BEHIND Looking out one evening, Mrs. Burnham was horror-stricken to see a band of Indians, hideously painted, lurking in the surround- ing timber. Hampered with her child, she knew escape would be impossible and, yet, alone there might be a chance to get through, for she was strong and fleet of foot. Her heart wrung with misgivings, she carried her little son Freddy outside to a stack of newly-shocked corn, still green and so could not be fired by the savages. She set the little fellow deep in the hollow centre of the shock of corn and warned him again and again not to move, not to make any noise or cry out until she came back. Beset with fear, she hurried away into the bush just as the Indians reached her cabin home. She saw and heard them hunt- ing about for their victims who were not there. She heard them start on her trail, but she outwitted and finally outdistanced them, gaining the partial security of a barricaded cabin six hours later but, long before that, she had seen the flames of her precious dwelling redden the sky. Next morning, quickly as daybreak came, she hurried back with a band of armed settlers to find her baby. And she did find him, safe in the centre of that green shock of corn, just as she had set him—silent, trustful, looking up at her and lisping inquiringly, “Can I talk now, mummy?” Of such stuff are scouts made. A year later, 36 Sioux chiefs were con- demned to death by hanging at Mankato for their part in an uprising that caused the death, by torture, of hundreds of white settlers. Defiant to the end, those stoics expected no mercy and asked for none. They could die, as they had made others die, and they met their ignominious death singing the Sioux war-song, exultant, defiant. When Fred Burnham was 11 years old, the family moved to California, when the West was indeed the wild West. In a Mexican mix-up, the boy was under fire when only 11 years of age. Burnham’s father died in 1873.. His mother decided to go back East, where her friends were, but Fred, who was then 13, decided to stay in the Far West. He became a mounted messenger for the Western Union Tele- graph Company, and this involved much hard riding, often night riding and hazard- ous journeys. The lad was untiring and could play out four horses before giving up himself. This proved a great whet to young Burnham’s appetite for adventure. He learned to track and to read the trail like a book. At 18 he was getting his coaching in scouting in Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico from some of the finest Page Nineteen