more than release from a diet of horse-flesh
and the irritating confinement of a siege; but no man and no woman in
Mafeking even breathed the suggestion that Baden-Powell should haul
down his flag; and on the hundredth day of the siege Mafeking sent a
telegram of loyal devotion to the Queen, whose anxiety for their
safety was not concealed from the world. A hundred days have long
since passed, and if the request of Lord Roberts that Baden-Powell
should hold out to the middle of May turns out to be history, the
siege will have lasted considerably over two hundred days. And during
these long, long days men have been in the trenches night and day,
children crying to their mothers to be taken away from the pitiless
rain of Boer bullets and the terrifying scream of Boer shells; day by
day fever has crept in to lessen the number of brave men whose faith
in the Old Carthusian never once wavered, and to rob poor mothers of
their little ones. And with all these distressing experiences to wear
him down and sicken his heart, our hero found himself further hampered
by treachery in his own camp.

Treachery it was that frustrated Baden-Powell's great effort to break
the cordon pressing so relentlessly upon little Mafeking, and by that
means open up communication with those marching to his relief. The
battle of Game Tree fort, as it is called, is one of those events
which thrill the heart with pride, and then at the conclusion bring
tears into the eyes with the reflection that so much skill in the
planning, so much valour in the execution, should be defeated by base
treachery.

Baden-Powell's plans for the taking of this fort were perfectly
understood by his officers. The little force entrusted with the work
of carrying Game Tree moved out of the town in the dusk of early
morning, and in a few minutes the roar of artillery announced the
beginning of a desperate fight. The scream of the engine of the
armoured train told the men at the guns to cease firing, meaning that
Captain Vernon was ready to rush the position with the bayonet. The
scene that followed was magnificent. Waving their hats and cheering
like schoolboys after a football match, our men started to run through
the scrub towards the silent fort. And then as they went, a pitiless
fire suddenly poured in upon them, a hail of bullets tore up the
ground at their feet, swept down their gallant ranks, like grass
before the scythe, and the men realised amid that enclosing and
r