his mind whether we would go or not, I'd wire to some
others who would help him to make up his mind quickly. He said I was
at liberty to do that, so I went out and burned wires over all of South
Africa. As he reads all the telegrams he naturally read mine and the
next morning he was as humble and white as a head waiter. But by ten
o'clock my wires began to bear fruit and he began to catch it. Milner
wired him to send us on at once and apologized to us by another wire so
all is well and we go vouched for by the High Commissioner.

DICK.

PRETORIA, May 18th, 1900.

DEAR DAD--AND OTHERS OF THE CLARK AND DAVIS FAMILIES:

I have not had time to write such a long letter as this one must be, as
I have been working on my Ledger and Scribner stories.

Cecil and I started to the "front," which was then May 4th, at
Brandfort with Captain Von Loosberg, a German baron who married in New
Orleans and became an American citizen and who is now in command of
Loosberg's Artillery in the Free State. The night we left, the English
took Brandfort, so we decided to go only as far as Winburg. The next
morning the train despatcher informed us Winburg was taken, so we
decided to go to Smalldeel, but that went during the afternoon, so we
stopped at Kronstad. From there, after a day's rest, we went to
Ventersberg station, and rode across to Ventersberg town, about two
hours away, and put up in Jones's Hotel. The next day we went down to
the Boer laagers on the Sand river and met President Steyn on the way.
He got out of his Cape Cart and gave Cecil a rose and Loosberg his
field glasses, which Cecil took from Loosberg in exchange for her own
Zeiss glass, and he gave me a drink and an interview. He also gave us
a letter to St. Reid, who had established an ambulance base on Cronje's
farm, telling him to give Cecil something to sleep upon. The, Boers
were very polite to Cecil and as she rode through the different camps
every man took off his hat. We went back to Ventersberg that night and
about two o'clock Cecil came to my room and woke me up with the
intelligence that the British were only two hours away. She had heard
the commandant informing the landlady, a grand low comedy character
from Brooklyn, who had the room next to Cecil's. I interviewed the
landlady who was sitting up in bed in curl papers, and with a Webley
revolver. She was quite hysterical so I aroused Loosberg who was too
sleepy to understand. The commandant could