So it goes on through the day, and I have great fun galloping about on
my own account, looking into things here and there, and watching the
general progress of events. I meet Chester Master again about 5 P.M.,
and he asks me to ride forthwith to Kimberley with him if Flops can
stand it. All the Boer force has cleared from Magersfontein (our
information was all right) and is in retreat on Bloemfontein, and
Kitchener is sending word by Chester Master to French, bidding him right
turn and march to head off the Boer retreat, while he (Kitchener) hangs
on their tail.

An hour later we start; four of us. Chester Master, myself, May, and a
black boy. It is a twenty-three mile ride. A full moon is in the sky but
clouds obscure it, which is a good thing, as the country is being
traversed by stragglers of theirs, leaving the hills and in retreat
eastward. We hear of several such fugitive bodies from our pickets for
the first few miles. Then we are in absolute solitude. The plain lies
bare and blanched around us. A thorn bush or two sticks up on it, or,
now and then, the ghastly shape of a dead horse lying in puffed up
relief with legs sticking out stiff and straight and an awful stench
blowing from it. Kimberley's search-light at stated intervals still
swings its spoke over our head.

Six or seven miles out from Kimberley my pony gives out, and Chester
Master and May on fresh horses ride on, leaving me the boy. We plod on,
an interesting, delicious ride. I get off and walk. A little wind
rustles over the dry earth and bushes, but otherwise there is not a
whisper of sound. The landscape at one moment lies white before us as if
it had been washed in milk, and the next is blotted out with clouds. Now
and again we pause to listen, and the boy stands like a bronze image of
Attention with bent head and held breath, the whites only of his eyes