have a smack at them, anyway! Coming along?" he
shouted to me, and without waiting for a reply, started down the valley.
I followed him, and we cut across over the loose stones at a breakneck
pace, not making straight for the enemy, but for a rocky ridge whence
our fire could reach them. As we climbed the ridge we were joined by two
others. When we got to the top we saw about forty horsemen in the valley
beyond.

"Fifteen hundred yards!" shouted Frank, and we let them have it. Round
and round they turned in a confused circle, like a flock of worried
sheep. Then they rode away to the right, straight into a morass, back
again, and finally retreated in amongst the bushes on the slope of the
hill, whence they favoured us with a few well-aimed shots in reply. The
whole thing had lasted barely five minutes, but we had each emptied
about fifty cartridges, so we felt quite happy. As we left the shelter
of the hill and rode back across the valley, their companions on top of
the hill turned a Maxim on us, but the bullets all went high, singing
overhead like a flight of canaries. Going up on the other side, I took a
piece of bread out of my pocket, and was just trying to persuade myself
to offer our two companions some, when crack! crack! came a couple of
Nordenfeldt shells right behind us. It didn't take us long to get over
the hill, the vicious little one-pounders crackling and fizzling round
us all the while.

On the other side a comical sight met our eyes. The whole veld was full
of scattered Boers retiring in all directions, with a shell bursting in
between them every now and then, luckily without any effect. A few
hundred yards away stood the cart of our clergyman, who was frantically
trying to unharness his mules and inspan horses in their place. He was
so nervous that his fingers refused to undo the straps, so we dismounted
and effected the exchange for him. As soon as the last strap was buckled
he lashed up and drove away, too excited even to say thank you.

We were so accustomed to retreating by this time that it seemed
extraordinary to see a man lose his head so easily. The British shells
pursued us till we were out of sight, but the only casualty was when a
shell passed so close to Van der Merwe, the mining commissioner of
Johannesburg, that the concussion knocked him off his horse.

That evening Jonas came into camp. Jonas is quite a character in his
way. When the British entered Potchefstroom he, with four follow