. Surely they can't
be going to get off scot-free. "Take your time, men; _now do take your
time_," insists our captain. "A thousand yards, and aim well ahead!" And
now at last it is seen with glee that something is the matter with the
man on the white horse. Horse is it, or man? Both apparently. The man
seems to be lying on his horse's neck, and the horse has lapsed into a
walk. Instantly two of his comrades have turned to him. One begins
thrashing the horse with his rifle into a canter. The other seems to be
holding the rider in the saddle. Every carbine is on to them. Another
Boer jumps off and lies down, and the report of his rifle reaches us at
the same instant that a bullet whistles overhead. No one attends to him.
Every man is blazing away at the little slow moving group of three, a
good mark even at this distance. But it is not to be; though the dust
spots are all round them, hit them we can't; and at last as they move
away in the distance, the last reluctant shot is fired, and we give it
up. On this particular occasion we capture one of the Boers a little
further on hidden in a farm garden, his horse having been shot, though
we did not notice it. This accounts for two anyway, which is about what
we expect, and we proceed good-naturedly to help the farm people out
with some of their furniture before burning the house down.

I am writing this lying on my back in our tiny tent. Outside the sun is
blazing. Across the river, on the edge of the hill, our picket, under
the lee of a kraal wall, is shooting at intervals. It sounds as if some
one in the distance were chopping wood. The Colonel and Driscoll are
standing just outside watching through their glasses. They can make out
Boer scouts on the horizon, but no one pays much attention.

Driscoll, of Driscoll's Scouts, is a thick-set, sinewy man, rather short
than tall. He is of an absolute sooty blackness. Hair and moustache
coal-black, and complexion so scorched and swarthy that at a little
distance you might almost take him for a nigger. There is about his face
a look of unmistakable determination amounting to ferocity in moments of
excitement. He looks and is a born fighter, but is apt to be over
headlong in action. His scouts are part of our 250 mounted men under
Rimington.

As for the Colonel I don't know if I have ever tried to describe him to
you. He is a man who invites description. Of all the men in the army he
is the one you would single out to sketch. An