THE LONG TRAIL 



from the Veldt filled us with delight, and 

 to tliis day I know of no etching that 

 affects nie as does the frontispiece by the 

 author's father. It is called the "Last 

 Trek." An old hunter is lying dead be- 

 side his ox-wagon ; near him squat two of 

 his Kafir boys, and in the distance graze 

 herds of zebra and hartebeeste and giraffe. 

 Of the mighty hunters that still sur- 

 vived at that time, father admired most 

 Mr. F. C. Selous. His books he knew al- 

 most by heart. Whenever Selous came to 

 the United States he would stay with us, 

 and father would sit up till far into the 

 night talking of wild life in the open. 

 Selous, at sixty-five, enlisted in the late 

 war as a private ; he rose to be captain, and 

 was decorated with the D. S. O. for gal- 

 lantry before he fell fighting the Germans 

 in East Africa. No one could have de- 

 vised a more fitting end for the gallant 

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