nto their case_). "You
may put it down, Mr Intelligence, in that voluminous diary of yours,
that our quarry has escaped. They have slipped us. Come along; we must
canter on and see what the brigadier has in pickle for us!"

But, as subsequent events were to prove, the brigade-major for once
was in error....

We found the brigadier impatiently awaiting us, with half the battery
hooked in, and the 20th Dragoons standing to their horses. He did not
wait for rest or explanation; but as soon as we cantered in with the
pom-pom, gave the order for the column to advance. The mule-convoy had
come in in our absence, and it had orders to follow us as best it
could.

_Brigadier._ "Look here, you fellows; I really am sanguine for the
first time since I have been engaged in this kind of 'follow your
leader.' Just about half an hour after you left, our friend the
turkey-expert of last night sent in a red-hot man with a message that
he had held up the main body of a Boer commando in a pass just west
of Fauresmith. He wasn't in position to stop the advance-guard, which
went through with about six Cape carts; but he had since captured the
Boer picket on the pass and had turned the main body--consisting of
about thirty Cape carts and 400 burghers--back, and when he wrote they
were halted in Fauresmith."

_Brigade-Major._ "We have seen that advance-guard. But is there no
other way by which the enemy can get to the Riet: by swinging round
between Fauresmith and Jagersfontein, for instance?"

_B._ "We can't hope that he will stay and wait for us in Fauresmith.
Of course there will be a way round; but he may delay, he may try and
force his way past the turkey-expert, and then we may be there first.
I sent Goven on with the 21st and two guns at once to strike a
bee-line for Kalabas bridge--to reck for nothing, only to get there.
But we have neither guides nor maps that can give one any idea of the
true lie of the country. I could only furnish him with the direction
and the ordinary inaccurate sheet-map."

_B.-M._ "And what do you intend doing yourself, sir?"

_B._ "We will just push on hell-for-leather for the position which the
turkey-expert is holding; and then if he is being attacked, and wind
and tide will allow it, we will just hurl ourselves into ole man De
Wet, smother him, or perish in the attempt."

The hills about Fauresmith differ little in formation from the general
character obtaining in South Africa. They divide the vel