scraps all along the old man's beat--about sixty of 'em--as well as side-
shows with other generals and columns. Van Zyl told 'im of a big beat he'd
worked on a column a week or so before I'd joined him. He demonstrated his
strategy with forks on the table.

"'There!' said the General, when he'd finished. 'That proves my contention
to the hilt. Maybe I'm a bit of a pro-Boer, but I stick to it,' he says,
'that under proper officers, with due regard to his race prejudices, the
Boer'ud make the finest mounted infantry in the Empire. Adrian,' he says,
'you're simply squandered on a cattle-run. You ought to be at the Staff
College with De Wet.'

"'You catch De Wet and I come to your Staff College--eh,' says Adrian,
laughing. 'But you are so slow, Generaal. Why are you so slow? For a
month,' he says, 'you do so well and strong that we say we shall hands-up
and come back to our farms. Then you send to England and make us a present
of two--three--six hundred young men, with rifles and wagons and rum and
tobacco, and such a great lot of cartridges, that our young men put up
their tails and start all over again. If you hold an ox by the horn and
hit him by the bottom he runs round and round. He never goes anywhere. So,
too, this war goes round and round. You know that, Generaal!'

"'Quite right, Adrian,' says the General; 'but you must believe your
Bible.'

"'Hooh!' says Adrian, and reaches for the whisky. 'I've never known a
Dutchman a professing Atheist, but some few have been rather active
Agnostics since the British sat down in Pretoria. Old man Van Zyl--he told
me--had soured on religion after Bloemfontein surrendered. He was a Free
Stater for one thing.'