I
can do for you?"

"Yes," said Mr. Kipling, "I want this man taken away and killed!"

The youth was much confused, but he had done his duty; so Private
Dickson had his boots, and great was the mirth and loud the cheering
about the tents of B Company.

This police protection of the camps was surprisingly close, but one
learned the reason when one had moved about for a little while among the
military authorities. For here, even in the heart of British territory,
the Boer spy was feared; he was thought to be the servant of an agency
hardly less invisible and powerful than the Open Eye of the Mormons; and
one was told that his machinations were as patent as his secrecy was
perfect. One morning a section of the railings surrounding picketed
horses would be found demolished; on another the whole milk supply of a
camp would be infected by some poisonous bacillus. It seems almost
incredible, but it is true that all such mishaps were attributed to Boer
treachery. In the popular imagination the Boer agent moved undiscovered
amid the daily life of Cape Town; at noon in the busy street; in the
club smoke-room; in the hotel dining-room--a woman this time, arrayed in
frocks from Paris, and keeping a table charmed by her conversation. And
yet the objects of this superstitious dread were allowed to have
qualities that made some of our officers dislike their business. An
English officer said to me one night:

"One can't say it here without being misunderstood, but I love the
Boers, even though I am fighting them. My father was a colonist, and
these men were like brothers of his. I have been in houses here where I
knew there were guns stored for the enemy, and where the sons would
probably be fighting me in the field, and the people have almost cried
when I have been going away; neither of us talked about it, but each
knew what was in the other's mind. People say they're like animals, and
perhaps they are; at least they're like animals in this, that once you
make them distrust you, you'll never win their confidence again. And
they don't trust us."

That officer is well enough known, and universally admired as a smart
soldier; but not everyone who sees the keen soldier, anxious above all
things for his own country's success, realises with what conflicting
emotions he goes to the fight.

I was anxious to see a real live Boer, as I thought it quite improbable
that I should see one at the front; half the officers and men who had
bee