On the third side were about 40,000 English, and their plan was to drive General De Wet into the angle formed by the blockhouse lines. They were advancing rapidly, and General De Wet knew that he must decide and act quickly, so he made up his mind to cross the Lindley-Kroonstad line of blockhouses. It was a very dark night and he had lost sight of his cattle, but there was no time to lose in trying to recover them. On reaching the line, he cut out a passage in the net-work of barbed wire within a hundred yards of the blockhouses on either side, and passed through without a shot being fired. He went on for a few miles and unsaddled for the night. He had not been in camp very long before he heard shouting in the darkness, and much to his surprise here came four young burghers with the 500 cattle which he had given up as lost. These youngsters had cut away the wires and driven all these cattle between the blockhouses without the English firing a shot. The blockhouse system may be a great invention, but it is of no earthly use when fighting such an enemy as the Boers. I am sure that we crossed the blockhouse lines on the high veldt at least fifty times, yet I never heard a shot from one of them. I remember one occasion when 300 Boers, about 100 trek wagons loaded with women and children, and nearly 10,000 head of cattle, passed through a line of blockhouses, and not one shot was fired. We were well surrounded, and on the following morning, the English spent hours hunting us within the circle, while we were at least ten miles away. The English officer is certainly a brilliant soldier. It was only a few days after this that the English suddenly came upon these wagons, women and children, and, of course, captured them. About an hour afterwards, a small Boer commando with a French gun discovered the wagons moving along with an escort of about fifty Tommies. The Boers could not attack, on account of the women and children, but one of the artillery boys thought he would see what effect a shell would have on the escort. He sighted the gun so that the shell would be sure to fall well to one side. The shell struck and exploded, about 200 yards from the escort, and every man fled as fast as his horse could take him. Then the women turned their wagons about and returned to the Boers. To each wagon was yoked from twelve to sixteen bullocks, and the women had to drive them. It was a sad sight to see those young and old ladies, and even children, working like slaves to escape capture by the English. They preferred to take the chance of being shot or of dying in open field, to sure death in the English prison camp. The bird having escaped for the hundredth time, the English columns went back to their respective stations, and then General De Wet, too, returned to his old corner.