rushing off to “do ditto” wherever these man-holes existed.  Now they were creeping stealthily round rocks “like stage assassins,” now leaping forward through the long yellow grass like men in a paper-chase,—­always fighting well and pluckily, lifting up their wounded and carrying them to places of safety, and then again joining in the battle, charging without fear upon their maddened enemy, parrying the thrust of sudden assegai with the bayonet that kills almost in the instant that it guards.  And while this work was going on, a sudden corner revealed another string of rebels running down a path.  “For a moment,” writes B.-P., “the thought crosses one’s mind, shall we stop to fire or go for them? but before the thought has time to fashion itself, we find ourselves going for them.”  Again there was the cheering rush, the rattle of rifles, and hard fighting till the enemy was scattered.  So the battle went on, and it did not cease until the stronghold was completely cleared.  Then the “flag-waggers” signalled back to the main body for stretchers.[2] During this pause Baden-Powell wrote an account of the fighting (illustrated), to be sent home to his mother.

In this manner Babyan was beaten, and the victors went back to camp satisfied with their day’s work.  On the following morning it was discovered that a column sent by the General to attack the enemy on the Inugu Mountain had not returned, and Baden-Powell with a patrol of a hundred men was ordered to go in search.  When the sun was up the little body moved off towards the mountains, and after passing through much difficult country, parts of which were actually in the occupation of the enemy, they struck the spoor of the missing column, and to Baden-Powell’s great joy found that the marks were quite fresh and leading outwards from the mountains—­showing that the missing men were safe.  Very soon after that the patrol was further cheered by seeing the gleam of the column’s camp-fires, and after an exchange of events Baden-Powell hurried back to camp to acquaint the General with the good news.

The next morning, forgetting that he had had another night out, Baden-Powell started off for solitary exercise in the mountains, his purpose being to “investigate some signs I had noted two days before of an impi camped in a new place,” and to select a position for the building of a fort to command the Matopos.  Returning to camp he drew his design and plan for the fort, and in the evening was back in the mountains again with a number of Cape Boys, ready to begin the business of building.

One of Baden-Powell’s little relaxations when fighting slackened was the “rounding off” of cattle, a sport almost as exciting as chasing a solitary boar, especially when the cattle are being driven into the mountains for “home consumption” by bloodthirsty and hungry Matabele.  On one of these occasions Baden-Powell was wounded.  Having rounded off some cattle he was riding towards a party