"First for the expedition. Remember asking me once why all explorers couldn't live off the land, as we did up the Mackenzie that winter? I said then that it could be done, and you're going to help prove me right in Africa. We're going to hunt elephant—not where you get them driven up while you sit in a camp-chair, either. We're going after bulls, rogues, the big fellows who live solitary, soured on life in general. We have to get two at least, for museums.
"Never mind an outfit. Don't need your snowshoes, of course. Jack will bring some knee-high moosehide moccasins—no machine-made junk, either. I'm getting the guns. Bring six of those Canadian lynx or fox steel traps. Can't seem to find 'em here, and they'll be useful.
"Have wired and written Sawtooth. He's a quarter-breed—hold on, old scout! Wait till he looks you up; Sunday, I expect. Jack is seventeen, looks like a white—and is white clear through. Next to you he's the hardiest and gamest ever. Got me skinned a mile on the trail. Educated at the Mission School. You'll like him. He's not sensitive on his blood, but rather proud of it."
Charlie paused and grinned to himself. He did not share the prejudice of a "tenderfoot" against the half-breeds. He knew well enough that as in any race a good, manly Cree or Salteaux was rather above the average white man in point of character.
"Jack has to get down from Mirror Landing, so give him a couple of days' leeway. You have plenty of time, I judge. Better fetch H. B. C. blankets; nights are cold in Africa, and we might strike into the mountains. The trip doesn't promise any more than expenses, but there is always a chance that we can trade or clean up on a bit of ivory. Once we get together we can go over the route and all that. However, the experience is worth while, and it's the best kind of an education. If we pull out ahead of the game you may have a stake to start in some kind of business for yourself.
"Check enclosed to cover expenses to New York. Don't buy any gold bricks when you strike Broadway! And don't let Jack scalp anyone on board the Overland.
"Yours in haste,
"Louis Schoverling."
Charlie slowly folded up the letter and stared out of the window for a moment.
"Jumping sandhills!" he murmured softly, and turned to where "the General" hung framed on his wall. "What a prince of a friend you are to a fellow! I guess I'll give you a bit of a surprise myself, just the same!"
Eight months before, when Schoverling had gone "out," as the saying is up there, he had left Charlie in Calgary. The boy had little knowledge of the ways of the city, but after parting with his new-found friend he had thrown himself into his new life, grimly determined that he would make good. And he had. In the day he had worked at his new trade, in the evening he had plugged away at night-school, making up for lost time. He had doffed his flannel shirt and timber boots for the garb of the city, and as he looked at himself in the glass that morning he grinned again.