gs about their ears, and it was not
possible for them to answer the guns which were smashing the life out of
them. There was no help for it but to surrender. De Wet added samples of
the British volunteer and of the British regular to his bag of militia.
The station and train were burned down, the great-coats looted, the
big shells exploded, and the mails burned. The latter was the one
unsportsmanlike action which can up to that date be laid to De Wet's
charge. Forty thousand men to the north of him could forego their coats
and their food, but they yearned greatly for those home letters,
charred fragments of which are still blowing about the veld. [Footnote:
Fragments continually met the eye which must have afforded curious
reading for the victors. 'I hope you have killed all those Boers by
now,' was the beginning of one letter which I could not help observing.]

For three days De Wet held the line, and during all that time he worked
his wicked will upon it. For miles and miles it was wrecked with most
scientific completeness. The Rhenoster bridge was destroyed. So, for the
second time, was the Roodeval bridge. The rails were blown upwards with
dynamite until they looked like an unfinished line to heaven. De Wet's
heavy hand was everywhere. Not a telegraph-post remained standing within
ten miles. His headquarters continued to be the kopje at Roodeval.

On June 10th two British forces were converging upon the point of
danger. One was Methuen's, from Heilbron. The other was a small force
consisting of the Shropshires, the South Wales Borderers, and a battery
which had come south with Lord Kitchener. The energetic Chief of the
Staff was always sent by Lord Roberts to the point where a strong man
was needed, and it was seldom that he failed to justify his mission.
Lord Methuen, however, was the first to arrive, and at once attacked
De Wet, who moved swiftly away to the eastward. With a tendency to
exaggeration, which has been too common during the war, the affair was
described as a victory. It was really a strategic and almost bloodless
move upon the part of the Boers. It is not the business of guerillas
to fight pitched battles. Methuen pushed for the south, having been
informed that Kroonstad had been captured. Finding this to be untrue, he
turned again to the eastward in search of De Wet.

That wily and indefatigable man was not long out of our ken. On June
14th he appeared once more at Rhenoster, where the construction