In those early days he was none too good a citizen.

He was in Swaziland with Bob Macnab, and you know what that means.

Then he took to working off bogus gold propositions on Kimberley and Johannesburg magnates, and what he didn't know about salting a mine wasn't knowledge.

After that he was in the Kalahari, where he and Scotty Smith were familiar names.

An era of comparative respectability dawned for him with the Matabele War, when he did uncommon good scouting and transport work.