ertain that if
they seriously desired to take possession of it they could do so. Under
ordinary circumstances any force shut up there was doomed to capture.
But what may have seemed short-sighted policy became the highest wisdom,
owing to the extraordinary tenacity and resource of Baden-Powell, the
officer in command. Through his exertions the town acted as a bait to
the Boers, and occupied a considerable force in a useless siege at
a time when their presence at other seats of war might have proved
disastrous to the British cause.

Colonel Baden-Powell is a soldier of a type which is exceedingly popular
with the British public. A skilled hunter and an expert at many games,
there was always something of the sportsman in his keen appreciation of
war. In the Matabele campaign he had out-scouted the savage scouts and
found his pleasure in tracking them among their native mountains, often
alone and at night, trusting to his skill in springing from rock to rock
in his rubber-soled shoes to save him from their pursuit. There was a
brain quality in his bravery which is rare among our officers. Full
of veld craft and resource, it was as difficult to outwit as it was to
outfight him. But there was another curious side to his complex nature.
The French have said of one of their heroes, 'Il avait cette graine de
folie dans sa bravoure que les Francais aiment,' and the words might
have been written of Powell. An impish humour broke out in him, and the
mischievous schoolboy alternated with the warrior and the administrator.
He met the Boer commandos with chaff and jokes which were as
disconcerting as his wire entanglements and his rifle-pits. The amazing
variety of his personal accomplishments was one of his most
striking characteristics. From drawing caricatures with both hands
simultaneously, or skirt dancing to leading a forlorn hope, nothing
came amiss to him; and he had that magnetic quality by which the leader
imparts something of his virtues to his men. Such was the man who held
Mafeking for the Queen.

In a very early stage, before the formal declaration of war, the enemy
had massed several commandos upon the western border, the men being
drawn from Zeerust, Rustenburg, and Lichtenburg. Baden-Powell, with
the aid of an excellent group of special officers, who included Colonel
Gould Adams, Lord Edward Cecil, the soldier son of England's Premier,
and Colonel Hore, had done all that was possible to put the place into a
state o