On November 7th Canada made the offer to the British Government of a second Contingent for South Africa, and on December 18th Sir Wilfred Laurier received a cablegram from Mr. Joseph Chamberlain accepting the offer. As one of the Canadian Ministry afterwards said, "It did not take much more than five minutes for the Cabinet to decide that the Hon. F. W. Borden, Minister of Militia, should immediately instruct his officers at the Militia Department to go on with the preparations for sending the second Contingent." The fact was that most of the details had been ready for a month and more. The Minister of Militia had early come to the conclusion that a second Contingent of Canadians should be gathered together in the form of cavalry or mounted infantry and artillery. The first to be given a chance of enlisting for South Africa were the Mounted Police. Forty-eight hours later steps were taken towards recruiting 200 Prairie Cowboys, men who could ride and shoot as well as any cavalrymen in the world, and who are accustomed to subsisting on the scantiest of rations. Next came the Royal Canadian Dragoons, regulars, who were mounted on well-trained horses, and so well drilled as to make it possible for every man of them to instruct the less trained recruits during the voyage. The Boers having a healthy horror of the lance as a cavalry weapon, it was decided that half at least of Canada's cavalry should be given this arm. [Illustration: LADY MINTO PRESENTING COLOURS TO HERCHMER'S HORSE, ON LEAVING OTTAWA, 19th JAN. 1900. Drawing by J. H. Bacon, from Photo by J. C. Hemment.] It was considered that the Cowboys, and such "Plainsmen of the West" as Herchmer's Horse, _broncho busters_ who had never been conquered by man or horse, would be specially valuable in the style of warfare affected by the Boers. With nerves of steel and thews of wire, they could speak without boasting of their capacity for putting in thirty-six hours consecutively in the saddle, and for living "on the smell of an oiled rag." Ardent volunteers who had failed to get a place in the first Contingent now rushed forward from every side. The sole disappointment was, that only a limited number could be accepted, and those must all be mounted men or artillery. The wild enthusiasm aroused by the brave and splendid work of that portion of the first Canadian Contingent which was with Colonel Pilcher in South Africa, and the inspiring accounts given by the correspondent of the _Toronto Globe_, resulted in more volunteering, and a third Contingent could easily have been raised, even after the rigorous medical examination had rejected numbers.