out your glass
and look. The Boers are coming on in a long extended line, and they
must be driving in our scouts."

"You don't mean it, do you, old chap?" cried Dickenson, dragging out his
glass.

"Yes; there's no mistake about it."

_Crack_! went a rifle from behind the projection, a few yards away; and
directly after, as the two officers began scurrying down, the bugles
were ringing out in the market-square, and the colonel gave his orders
for supports to go out, check the Boer advance, and bring the scouting
party or parties in.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

SOMETHING IN THE HEAD.

It was a narrow escape, but the nine men got safely back to quarters,
but minus two of their horses. For the Boers had in every case been
well upon the alert; their lines had not been pierced, and they followed
up the retreating scouts till the searching fire from the kopje began to
tell upon their long line of skirmishers, and then they sullenly drew
back, but not before they had learnt that there were marksmen in the
regiment at Groenfontein as well as in their own ranks.

"That's something, Drew," said Dickenson as he watched the slow movement
of a light wagon drawn by mules. "But only to think of it: all that
trouble for nothing--worse than nothing, for they have shot those two
horses. Yes, worse than nothing," he continued, "for they would have
been something for the pot."

Each of the scouting parties gave the same account of the state of
affairs; that is to say, that though to all appearances the country
round was clear of the enemy, a keen watch was being kept up, and, turn
which way they would, Boers were ready to spring up in the most
unexpected places to arrest their course and render it impossible to
reach supplies and bring them in.

Their report cast a damp on the whole camp. For bad news travels fast,
and this was soon known.

"Sounds bad," said Dickenson cheerfully, "and just like them. They are
not going to run their heads into danger unless obliged. They mean to
lie low and wait for us, then turn us back to starve and surrender."

"And they'll find that we shall take a great deal of starving first,"
replied Lennox bitterly. "But I don't agree with you altogether. I
fully expect that, in spite of their failure to blow us up, it will not
be long before they contrive something else."

"Well, we shall not quarrel about that, old man," said Dickenson
cheerily. "If they do come on in some attack, every one