afraid that De Wet will have taken your convoy."

_Brigadier._ "Was there ever a worse atrocity perpetrated than this?
If he had only been man enough to have done this twenty-four hours
earlier, when I implored him to do so, he might have been the greatest
hero of the war by this. But here, Uncle Baker (to the brigade-major),
just you send for that saucy fellow who commands the cyclists of the
Mount Nelson Light Horse, and tell him that he and his cyclists have
got to fight their way into Strydenburg by 10 A.M. to-morrow. Tell him
that if he gets a message off to Pretoria before 10 A.M. to-morrow,
it's as good as a D.S.O. for him. Tell him he must be prepared to
fight like h--l, only don't frighten him too much: just tell him
enough to keep him looking about him, otherwise his gang will get
captured in detail by the first Burgher they meet. He may start when
he likes. If I can get a message through to K. first, it won't matter
how much I mutiny afterwards!"

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Major (now Lieut.-Colonel) Bogle-Smith.

IX.

TO A NEW COVERT!

The cyclists of the Mount Nelson Light Horse trundled out of camp with
some show of bravery. They had left Cape Town 100 strong. The journey
from Hanover Road to Britstown had reduced their numbers by fifty per
cent. The bare fifty still with the brigade were the survival of the
fittest after a week of rain at Hanover and another week of struggling
with Karoo tracks ankle-deep in dust. But the men tried to show
something of a front as they pedalled out of camp. Their captain was
an enthusiast. He had, however, but poor material into which to infuse
his enthusiasm; and at any time South African roads are as
demoralising to wheel-men used to a macadamised surface as the
bouldered bed of a stream would be to a traction-engine. These same
cyclists were the men who had scorched up to the Picquetberg Passes
when ten men and a boy threatened Cape Town with invasion; and the
memory of the wave of military enthusiasm which convulsed the great
seaport from Greenpoint to Simon's Town was still worth something to
them as, over-weighted, they struggled with the Karoo.

"You may not think it," said the brigadier, as he wrestled with the
mutton, which is the staple food of the veldt breakfast-table, "but I
am anxious about those fellows,--d----d anxious. But it is no use
having cyclists if they are only to loaf about in camp. I use them
much in same spirit as an inexperienced pyrami