not seem to be
tempted by the pay offered them, although I have offered double what I
gave before."

"That's bad," said the doctor. "Well, I suppose you can hold this
place?"

"Tight!" said the colonel laconically.

"So long as provisions and ammunition hold out?" said Captain Roby
tentatively.

"Yes," assented the colonel.

"And when they are ended," cried Dickenson, who had sat listening in
silence, "we can try a bit of sport. There are herds of antelopes and
flocks of guinea-fowl about, sir."

"I doubt it, Dickenson," said the colonel, smiling; "and I fancy that
the most profitable form of sport for us will be that followed out by
our mounted men."

"What's that, sir?" asked Dickenson.

"Stalking the enemy's convoys. These fellows have to be fed, hardy and
self-supporting as they are. But there, we are pretty well supplied as
yet, and the great thing is that our water-supply is never likely to
fail."

The next morning the Boers made a fresh attack for the purpose of
recapturing the gun or seizing the kopje where it was mounted. But this
advance, like several more which followed, only resulted in a severe
repulse, and at last their attacks formed part of a long blockade in
which they hoped to succeed by starving the little British force into
subjection.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE BOER PRISONERS.

It was to this village and kopje, turned after its long occupation into
what proved to be an impregnable stronghold--one which so far, to the
Boers' cost, maintained its promise--that Drew Lennox and Bob Dickenson
returned after their unfortunate fishing expedition, the colonel, a
bluff, sun-burnt, stern-looking officer, meeting them with a frown as
they came up. "How many men hurt, Roby?" he said.

"Only one, sir. Dickenson had his ear nicked by a bullet."

"Humph! Might have been worse, my lad," said the colonel. "Show it to
the doctor.--Where are your fish, Lennox?"

"In the river, sir," said the young officer, with a shrug of the
shoulders. "How was that?"

The young man briefly explained, and the colonel nodded his head.

"Look here," he said, "we want some change from our monotonous fare; but
if you two had come back loaded with salmon I should have forbidden any
further fishing--so of course I do now. I can't afford to have my
officers setting themselves up as butts for the Boers to practise at."

"We have taken fifteen prisoners and their horses, sir," interposed
Captain Roby, making