fire, or at the mess
table, Frazer's voice was always heard, no matter how great the
tumult of a moment before.

Like many another of his countrymen, Captain Frazer had learned
lessons since he had left the ship at Cape Town, just a year before.
He had come out from England, trained to the inflexibly formal
tactics of the British army. Again and again he had seen those
tactics proved of no avail in the face of an invisible enemy and an
almost inexpugnable country. He had learned the nerve-racking
tension of being exposed to a storm of bullets that came apparently
from nowhere to cut down the British lines as the hail cuts down the
standing grain; he had learned the shock of seeing the level veldt,
over which he was marching, burst into a line of fire at his very
feet from a spot where it seemed that scarce a dozen men could lie
in hiding, to say nothing of a dozen scores. He had learned that,
under such fire, a man's first duty was to drop flat on his face, to
push up a tiny breastwork of earth and to fire from behind that
slender shelter. England could not afford to send her sons over seas
for the sake of having them slaughtered by needless obedience to the
laws of martial good form. Fighting a nation of hunters, they too
must adopt the methods of the hunt. And, most of all, Captain Frazer
had learned the imperative need of mounted riflemen. Two months
before, while lying up at Durban until his wrist had healed from a
Mauser bullet, he had come into close contact with the Marquis of
Tullibardine. As a result of that contact, January had found Captain
Frazer in Cape Town, ready to take command of the newly enlisted
Scottish Horse.

Now, as he looked over his force at Piquetberg Road, he was
congratulating himself that his men were fit for service, very fit.
Frazer knew something of men. Experience had assured him that these
men were worth training and his months of service under the great
Field Marshal had taught him that an officer could be a man among
his men, yet lose not one jot of his dignity. Accordingly, Frazer
set himself to the task in band. By the time he had been at
Piquetberg Road for two days, he knew the name and face of every man
in his squadron. A week later he could tell to a nicety which of his
men were engaged to girls at home, which of them had heard of one
Rudyard Kipling, and which of them could be counted upon in an
emergency. The two latter counts Weldon filled absolutely. In regard
to the f