Selous' first trip with MacMillan was successful in his getting several new species for his collection, but what he most wanted was a good black-maned lion. He was, however, unsuccessful in this. Mr. Williams, a member of his party, found three lions one day and killed two of them somewhat easily. The third charged and seized the unfortunate hunter by the leg, severely biting him. His life, however, was saved by the bravery of his Swahili gun-bearer, who gave the lion a fatal shot as it stood over his master. Mr. Williams was carried to hospital in Nairobi, where he lay between life and death for some time, and then completely recovered.
At the beginning of September, 1910, the Second International Congress of Field Sports was held at Vienna in connection with the Exhibition. The First Congress met at Paris in 1907, when the British delegate was Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, while, at Vienna, Selous was appointed by Sir Edward Grey, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, as the official delegate from this country. The Congress was divided into three separate sections, dealing respectively with the Economic Importance, the Science and Practice, and the Legislation of Field Sports. The meetings of these three sections were held simultaneously, and the British delegate confined his attention to Section III (Legislation). In this section he was instrumental, with the cordial support of his French colleague, Comte Justinien Clary, President of the St. Hubert Club of France, in securing the passing of an important resolution in favour of the International Protection of Migrating Birds (especially the quail and woodcock).
At the Exhibition Great Britain was represented by a very fair collection of Big Game heads. Selous sending his best Koodoo, Wart Hog, White Rhinoceros, and Alaskan Moose, all exceptional specimens.
Selous was delighted with all he saw of the Great Hunting Exhibition, by far the finest of its kind ever offered to the public. I had hoped to meet him there, as I was going to hunt in Galicia, but found he had left for home. After describing the exhibition he wrote to me:—
"Warburton Pike wishes me to tell you that he will show you round the Exhibition. The Hungarian, Austrian and old German stags' heads are simply wonderful, but there are so many that it is bewildering. Weidmann's Heil."
Warburton Pike, here mentioned, was a splendid specimen of an Englishman, who was to British Columbia and Arctic Canada what Selous himself was to Africa. In his person existed a type of pioneer as modest as courageous. His travels and privations in the Arctic barren grounds made him known to most people in Canada, whilst his unselfish devotion and unfailing kindness to his fellow colonists endeared him to thousands of "voyageurs" who battled with the forces of Nature in the far North-West. He had a little mine amongst the Jack pines above Dease Lake where he lived, in the four working months, chiefly on tea, game and "flapjacks." Here he wrested from a refractory soil about as much gold as would have satisfied a Chinaman. Nevertheless, he toiled on year after year, because he had faith and the grit that bites deep even when common sense says, "Is it good enough?"
Every spring saw "Pikey" full of hope, dragging his canoe with two Indians up the rain-drenched valley of the Stikine for 200 miles, and then on with pack-horses to his mine, another 100 miles, and every fall he raced downward to the sea, disappointed, but undefeated. When people met him in Vancouver, they would say, "How goes it, Pikey?" Then his kind face would light up. "Splendid," he would reply, though he had hardly enough money to buy bread and butter.
Yet no one ever appealed to Warburton Pike in vain, for on the rare occasions when he had a little money he invariably gave it away to his less fortunate friends. Every wastrel and miner on the Pacific slope knew "Pikey" and asked his advice and help, which was ever forthcoming, and in the eyes of the colonists he was the man who embodied the type of all that was best.
From Vancouver to the Yukon and from St. Michaels to the Mackenzie, the name of Warburton Pike was one to conjure with, and though comparatively unknown in England, his noble spirit will never be forgotten in the homes of all those who knew and loved him. Like all good men, he came to England in 1914, to play his part in the Great War, and I think it broke his heart when he found no one would employ him. He suffered a nervous breakdown, and in a fit of depression he took his own life in the summer of 1916. He published a few books, among which the best-known is "Through the Sub-Arctic Forest."