During the whole of November operations on both sides were carried on with regularity and steadiness. Baden-Powell had elaborated a system by which the inhabitants of Mafeking were warned by the ringing of signal bells whenever shells were approaching the town, and as the Boer missiles were sighted, the folk on every side made for the shell-proof shelters which had been constructed in all quarters. Baden-Powell himself was perpetually on the look-out, and he might have had a thousand eyes in his head, so carefully and zealously did he attend to the various matters requiring his attention. While he took particular care of the town and its people, he was not forgetful of the enemy's presence, and continually harassed and worried Cronje and his men by sorties and assaults, in which the British usually got the best of it. The British trenches and outposts were gradually pushed forward, and between the defenders and the Boers a continual exchange of desultory firing went on. Cronje became somewhat weary of the slow progress of affairs. He had expected to occupy Mafeking, and from it to overrun Rhodesia, with little delay; the determined resistance offered to his attack chafed and infuriated him. The news of Lord Methuen's advance upon the Modder River presently drew Cronje away, and with him went a considerable number of the besiegers, Commandant Snyman being left in charge of those who remained. Early in December came the affair of the exchange of Lady Sarah Wilson for Viljoen. When the siege began, Lady Sarah, who was acting as special correspondent of the _Daily Mail_, and whose husband, Captain Gordon Wilson, was a member of Baden-Powell's staff, left Mafeking and rode across country to Setlagoli, where she met friends. Finding that her presence there was likely to cause discomfort to the latter, she went on to Mosuti, where she stayed at the house of a colonial farmer. From this place she kept up communication by means of native runners, but at the end of a month set out, in company with a young Boer who was induced to represent himself as her brother, for Vryburg, where she obtained news from the loyalists. Suspicion as to her real character appears to have been roused here, and she and her escort were severely examined by the Landrost ere they could get out of the town again. Lady Sarah now determined to return to Mafeking, and set out thither, only to be made prisoner by some of General Snyman's burghers. Snyman refused to allow her to proceed to Mafeking or to return to her friends at Setlagoli, and gave her the alternative of being sent prisoner to Zeerust or exchanged for Viljoen, whose previous record as a horse-thief appears to have been a somewhat dark one. Lady Sarah at first refused to be exchanged under these conditions, but the transaction was soon afterwards completed, and she returned to the beleaguered town. Her account of what she had seen in the Boer camp must have had a reassuring and confidence-inspiring effect upon