remained on the other, with absolutely nothing to eat.  By buying a few eggs and other small produce from the natives we managed to subsist until the third day, when we crossed the railway, marched all night, and rejoined our waggons at dawn.  To slaughter sheep and cook porridge did not take long; hearty is the only word to describe the meal we made.  Then we moved round and joined Liebenberg, who, with six hundred men, had just retaken Klerksdorp without firing a shot.  But then, the place was garrisoned by only forty English, and resistance would have been of no avail.

We hung about the neighbourhood of Potchefstroom for about two weeks, anxiously waiting for the word to be given to attack the town, but Liebenberg confined his tactics to making an appearance in sight of the town and retreating as soon as the enemy came out to give battle.  This kept the enemy on the qui vive, it is true, but it also tired out our horses, and we soon grew weary of it.  We had several lively little skirmishes, however.  One day about forty of us were detached to go and bombard a British gun which stood on the other side of the town, whilst the rest of our commando approached the town on this side.  We were sitting down quite comfortably under a tree below our gun, eating bread and dripping, listening to the duel and smiling at the high aim of the British gunners, when the look-out shouted—­“Here’s the enemy behind us!”

The gun was rapidly limbered up and we rode to the top of the hill.  Across the valley about a hundred horsemen were stealthily stealing up Vaal Kop, evidently with the intention of taking us in the rear.  We halted and gave them a couple of shells, to which they very promptly replied.

“Commandant,” said one of my comrades, “let’s charge them.  They’re not too many for us.”

“No,” was the reply; “it’s best to be prudent.”

“Well, I’m going to have a smack at them, anyway!  Coming along?” he shouted to me, and without waiting for a reply, started down the valley.  I followed him, and we cut across over the loose stones at a breakneck pace, not making straight for the enemy, but for a rocky ridge whence our fire could reach them.  As we climbed the ridge we were joined by two others.  When we got to the top we saw about forty horsemen in the valley beyond.

“Fifteen hundred yards!” shouted Frank, and we let them have it.  Round and round they turned in a confused circle, like a flock of worried sheep.  Then they rode away to the right, straight into a morass, back again, and finally retreated in amongst the bushes on the slope of the hill, whence they favoured us with a few well-aimed shots in reply.  The whole thing had lasted barely five minutes, but we had each emptied about fifty cartridges, so we felt quite happy.  As we left the shelter of the hill and rode back across the valley, their companions on top of the hill turned a Maxim on us, but the bullets all went high, singing overhead like a flight of canaries.  Going up on the other side, I took a piece of bread out of my pocket, and was just trying to persuade myself to offer our two companions some, when crack! crack! came a couple of Nordenfeldt shells right behind us.  It didn’t take us long to get over the hill, the vicious little one-pounders crackling and fizzling round us all the while.