On the Bloemfontein side, Kelly-Kenny took temporary charge of all the troops south of Kroonstad, whither a brigade under C. Knox was sent to protect the stores and supplies; and Winburg was strengthened. While C. De Wet was engaged upon his own work his brother P. De Wet, whom he threatened to shoot if he gave in, was discussing terms of surrender with Methuen at Lindley, but as in the contemporaneous negotiations between C. Botha and Buller at Laing's Nek, and between L. Botha and Lord Roberts in the Transvaal, no terms of settlement were arranged; and Methuen quitted a pacificatory colloquy with one brother to encounter the other in arms, and joined Kitchener at Heilbron Road Station on June 10. De Wet was elbowed away westwards from the railway, but he soon circled back, recrossing it at Lieuw Spruit between Rhenoster River Bridge and Heilbron Road Station, where he not only took fifty prisoners, but almost captured Kitchener, who chanced to be passing through at the time. It is interesting to speculate briefly on the effect which such a notable capture might have had upon the general situation. The Boers themselves would hardly have realized its importance. They were unaware of the position held by Kitchener in the British Army, and his name was unfamiliar to them. He had been here and there like many another commander whom they had met in the field. Still, they had never yet captured an unwounded general officer, and they would no doubt have made a great effort to prevent his services being again available against them.[47] It is, however, unlikely that De Wet would have been able to retain his prisoner for more than a few weeks at most. But no one can say what De Wet could not do. At home it is probable that a disastrous reaction would have followed the news of the railway broken, of Lord Roberts insolated in the Transvaal, and of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum a prisoner of war and possibly a hostage. It is very doubtful whether the nation, entangled by fresh difficulties and deafened by pro-Boer yells growing shriller and shriller every hour, would have remained firm of purpose. It is hardly too much to say that June 12, 1900, was one of the most critical dates in the history of the war. During the next fortnight, attacks on a convoy for Colvile at Heilbron, on the railway a few miles north of Kroonstad, a threat on Lindley which almost became a siege, and a raid on Virginia Siding by a commando under Roux, which sprang out of the Senekal district, maintained the mutiny, and again showed that however tightly the Boers might seem to be grasped in the hand, some of them were sure to wriggle through the fingers.