Kitchener crossed the Vaal on August 8, and hung to De Wet’s right rear, Methuen hanging on to the left rear; but neither was able to do more than clutch vainly at the skirts of the elusive column.  In front of De Wet, Smith-Dorrien was holding the Klerksdorp railway, but again he misled his pursuers, and instead of trekking north after he had crossed the Gatsrand, a movement which Smith-Dorrien anticipated and provided for, he changed direction, and on August 11 passed over the railway at a section which had been left unoccupied on Smith-Dorrien’s right flank.

[Sidenote:  Map, p. 240.]

Lord Roberts saw that Methuen’s and Kitchener’s pursuit would probably fail, and that De Wet would reach the Magaliesberg.  Ian Hamilton was instructed to prevent him crossing it, and on August 11 he was specifically ordered to occupy Olifant’s Nek.  Commando Nek was held by Baden-Powell.  There was a third pass, the Magato Nek, a few miles west of Rustenburg, for which De Wet was apparently making, and which seemed to be his only possible way of escape, as it was confidently assumed that the other passes were held by British troops.  It was, therefore, only necessary to head him from Magato Nek, and this was done by Methuen.  But the movement threw De Wet towards Olifant’s Nek, which to his great astonishment was not occupied, and through which he passed with Steyn on August 14 and shook off his pursuers.  Ian Hamilton had not been made to understand that the actual closing of Olifant’s Nek was an urgent matter; and he, in fact, informed Lord Roberts that he did not propose to do so except indirectly by a movement which would command the approach to it.

In this, the first of the De Wet hunts, nearly 30,000 British troops were directly or indirectly engaged in heading or pursuing over an area of 7,000 square miles.  Nine columns blindly zigzagged and divagated to false scents and imperfect information in chase of one man encumbered with a civil government on the run and several hundred wagons.  Again and again the fowler’s net was cast upon the migrant, who always wriggled through the meshes.  In one month he trekked 270 miles from the Brandwater Basin to the north of the Magaliesberg, with British troops continuously to his flanks, his front, and his rear.

It would have been regarded as the most notable personal exploit of the war if De Wet had not himself twice repeated it under circumstances of even greater difficulty.  It must be acknowledged that his daring and resolution deserved success.  He did not attain it by the means of followers eager to serve a trusted and beloved leader, for they by no means rose to him.  When he reached the Vaal he was careful to throw the burghers’ wagons across the river first of all, knowing that their unwillingness to leave the Free State would be overcome by their greater reluctance to sever themselves from their oxen and stuff.  He owed his success mainly to the power of a strong will to make weaker wills work for it; and in a less degree to the accuracy of the information which Theron, his chief scout, obtained for him.