by a body of
men. Do they often treat you to these protests?"

_C. C._ "Sometimes. They are children in many respects. I can tell you
they need gentle handling. They have made their protest, and for a
week or so will be quite satisfied. I even fancy that I shall be able
to get them to do yet another trek if the authorities insist; but it
makes it devilish hard for us to deal with these fellows, when faith
is so constantly broken with them. They are as quiet as mice when I
get them away from the railway. But once they see metals they smell
sea-water, and it upsets them. They are fine but quaint fellows!"

The brigadier acquiesced. He would have been just the man to have
commanded these men. And he would have improved a situation such as
the one we had just witnessed. Yet it would be impossible to overrate
the delicacy of that situation. A tactless man, full of the power
which long generations of military discipline has built round the
sanctity of a commission, in a few short sentences would have
converted the scene of incipient mutiny into open intractable
rebellion. As it was, the mutiny was taken in the spirit in which it
had been made, and terminated to the satisfaction of all
concerned.[39]

The New Cavalry Brigade became almost complete at Hopetown, as the
brigadier was able to collect his last missing squadron of the 21st
King's Dragoon Guards, which hitherto had been taking part in the De
Wet hunt with another column. A portion of the Mount Nelson Light
Horse, however, was still missing; but the brigadier did not worry
about them, and felt himself complete, as he took the precaution to
issue orders that he was about to proceed by rail to Jagersfontein
Road. But, as the narrative of the next forty-eight hours is to show,
the military system prevailing in South Africa was such that it was
only by a miracle that the most sagacious of leaders were able to
accomplish any exceptional result by strategy. The brigadier had
schemed to bring about a result which could only be arrived at by the
most rigid concealment of plan and direction.

It must be borne in mind that the Boers at this period of the campaign
had the most perfect system of intelligence. There was not a district
in the Transvaal or Orange River Colony which was not under the
command of a local commandant, who with a following of fifty to a
hundred men maintained a system of observation-posts throughout the
length and breadth of his district, and who ap