to cover with
one man always going forward protected by the rifles of the remaining
two men who have halted in a good position to fire on any enemy that
can fire on the leading man. The leading man having readied the cover
in front will signal back all clear, and the two men in the rear will
join him. They will then make their next advance in a similar manner.

By looking at the hill the patrol can make a good guess at the
locality which a hostile patrol would select if it was on the hill. It
would be a place where it could get a good view towards our outpost
line, and where the patrol could not be seen itself from the outpost
line. If the hill was quite bare with nothing but grass on it and flat
round top, the best place for the enemy's patrol would be exactly on
the top just behind the crest. In such a position he could not be seen
by any sentry to the right or left of our picket. For example, if the
hostile patrol chose a place on the side of the bare slope of the hill
and looked over the crest line it would not be seen by our sentry, but
it might be seen by another one on the flank.

The object of our patrol would be to approach the hill, not direct
from the outguard, but either from the left or right of the hill and
thus come on the flank of the enemy's patrol if he was there.

The whole picket can then be taken out to the front and follow the
movements of the patrol from cover to cover until the hill is reached.

The next step will be to ascertain if there is any one on the top of
the hill. If the hill is perfectly bare with a somewhat convex slope,
it would be best for the three men to extend to about twenty yards
interval and move forward together, prepared to drop on the first sign
of the enemy, so that they can creep up and open fire on him without
exposing themselves. Three men with magazine rifles extended in this
manner, opposed to a hostile patrol collected in one party, should be
able to deal with the latter without much difficulty. Their fire would
be converging, and coming from different directions would confuse the
hostile patrol, especially if the advance was made from a flank. The
men of the patrol when creeping up the hill should avoid exposing
themselves in the direction of the ground behind the hill, if
possible, because they want to examine that ground later on, and if
seen by the enemy they might fall into an ambuscade. If it is
impossible to avoid being seen from the ground beyond, it would