This was no deer which they were chasing, however, but rather a grim old Transvaal wolf, with his teeth flashing ever over his shoulder.  The sight of those distant white-tilted wagons fired the blood of every mounted infantryman, and sent the Oxfords, the Buffs, the West Ridings, and the Gloucesters racing along the river bank in the glorious virile air of an African morning.  But there were kopjes ahead, sown with fierce Dopper Boers, and those tempting wagons were only to be reached over their bodies.  The broad plain across which the English were hurrying was suddenly swept with a storm of bullets.  The long infantry line extended yet further and lapped round the flank of the Boer position, and once more the terrible duet of the Mauser and the Lee-Metford was sung while the 81st field battery hurried up in time to add its deep roar to their higher chorus.  With fine judgment Cronje held on to the last moment of safety, and then with a swift movement to the rear seized a further line two miles off, and again snapped back at his eager pursuers.  All day the grim and weary rearguard stalled off the fiery advance of the infantry, and at nightfall the wagons were still untaken.  The pursuing force to the north of the river was, it must be remembered, numerically inferior to the pursued, so that in simply retarding the advance of the enemy and in giving other British troops time to come up, Knox’s brigade was doing splendid work.  Had Cronje been well advised or well informed, he would have left his guns and wagons in the hope that by a swift dash over the Modder he might still bring his army away in safety.  He seems to have underrated both the British numbers and the British activity.

On the night then of Friday, February 16th, Cronje lay upon the northern bank of the Modder, with his stores and guns still intact, and no enemy in front of him, though Knox’s brigade and Hannay’s Mounted Infantry were behind.  It was necessary for Cronje to cross the river in order to be on the line for Bloemfontein.  As the river tended to the north the sooner he could cross the better.  On the south side of the river, however, were considerable British forces, and the obvious strategy was to hurry them forward and to block every drift at which he could get over.  The river runs between very deep banks, so steep that one might almost describe them as small cliffs, and there was no chance of a horseman, far less a wagon, crossing at any point save those where the convenience of traffic and the use of years had worn sloping paths down to the shallows.  The British knew exactly therefore what the places were which had to be blocked.  On the use made of the next few hours the success or failure of the whole operation must depend.