or imaginary
was past. It is the trammels of discipline such as this that breaks
the hearts of the stalwarts in our service, and racks the national
war-chest to the bottom. Can you blame the brigadier, alive to the
pressing exigency of the situation, when, having exhausted the
man-to-man arguments of common reason, he descended to the practice of
a subterfuge to defeat the purpose of a man whose only object appeared
to be to satisfy his own personal peace of mind? Yet we doubt if the
senior was conscious of the futility of his direction. He had one
object in view. He was possessed with the single desire to avoid
disaster. In its limited sense his action was laudable enough; but
what would the owner of a racehorse say to the jockey who, after
having ridden a sound horse in a race, volunteered the information
that he had never extended his mount out of consideration for its
sinews? The care of the jockey is parallel to that of fifty per cent
of the men who have led columns in this war--except that there has
been no judge in the box to balance the merits of each case. The judge
has been far away in Pretoria, and the jockey has furnished his own
estimate of the running....

So the New Cavalry Brigade remained out-spanned by the mud-holes,
while the other column passed through it and bore away in search of
the Prieska Road. The rearguard of the moving force was brought up by
a Colonial corps, which had originally been raised in Natal by the
brigadier of the New Cavalry Brigade. Of course the _personnel_ in the
ranks had long since changed. Changed, be it said with regret, for the
worse. But there was still remaining a small percentage of the
original stock--stock that had been second to none. As the rearguard
passed through, a great burly corporal cantered to the packing-case
table at which the staff of the New Cavalry Brigade had just settled
down to lunch, shouting, "Say, where is the ole man?"

The brigadier rose with a smile.

_Corporal._ "I heard that you were here, sir, and I couldn't go by
without speaking. Lord, what a sight for sore eyes it is to see you
again!--if there were only more like you. (_Then extending his hand._)
Come, sir, put your hand right here--it is a good day's work to have
again shaken hands with a man." And then the corporal was off in a
cloud of dust. But it had been an interesting and instructive
incident. Without a doubt the man was Yankee; but he had served all
through the Natal campaign