We came back, joined the four young Boers, returned to the line within a mile of Balmoral, cut twelve barbed wires, and went on our way. The English had put up dummy soldiers at the blockhouses, and dummy cannon on high points near them, but we were not frightened by them in the least. I mention this, because we soon had trouble, and I witnessed something that will give Joe Chamberlain, Lord Kitchener and Lord Milner the direct lie. We are now in February, and about twenty-five miles north of Middleburg. We are with Commandant Trichardt, of the Artillery, Captain Jack Hindon and Captain Karl Trichardt. The entire command is 213 strong. It is rolling prairie where we are camped, and on the Middleburg side are several thousand cavalry, and on the north side about five miles distant, some 4,000 Kaffirs who had been armed by the English. We kept a good look out both ways. Yet before the month came to an end, we were surrounded at daylight and suffered severely. Colonel Park with about 4,000 cavalry and 600 armed Kaffirs, made a night march and attacked us just at sunrise. They were on three sides of us, and the 4,000 armed Kaffirs were on the fourth side. They began to fire on us at a range of six or seven hundred yards, and as our horses were not saddled, but out grazing, one can well imagine that we were in a hot corner. Every man ran for his horse and pack horse, and under heavy fire saddled and packed. Then it was time that every man should make a dash for liberty. We put in the spurs and all made the dash, but unfortunately only thirty-nine of us succeeded in escaping. My pack mule always followed me, and although she fell far behind and the English hurled a storm of bullets at her, yet she came through all right, and joined me. These 600 armed Kaffirs were on the English left flank and fought in line with the Tommies; yet Chamberlain, Kitchener, Roberts, and Milner all swore that they had no armed Kaffirs with them in the war. Now, when any man tells me that such Englishmen as these are capable of telling the truth, I know at once that man is either an Englishman himself or an Anglo-American. On the high veldt the English columns were still very numerous, and there was daily fighting, but the Boers held their own and suffered but little. Commandant Alberts and Veldtcornet Tromp attacked the Scots Greys, who had shown up again, and utterly routed them near Springs, killing and capturing a few, and several horses. These Scots evidently meant it when they told us in January that they would not fight any more. In the Free State there was an army 60,000 strong in the field, bent on cornering and capturing General De Wet. They had him and his burghers with 500 cattle in a triangle, two sides of which were lines of blockhouses and networks of barbed wire. On both sides the blockhouses were very near to each other, and all well manned. It would seem almost impossible for any Boer force less than a thousand strong to pass through.