We were moving along in a wide formation, which secured us against all possibilities of surprise, when suddenly I noticed that the scouts far in front were halted. ’Tit-tat, tit-tat’: two shots from a high plateau to the right. Shots fired towards you, I must explain, make a double, and those fired away from you a single, report. We had flushed one of the enemy’s outposts. Riding nearer, I could see their figures--seven in all--exposed on the skyline. This showed they were only an outpost, and wished to make us believe they were more. When the Boer is in force he is usually invisible. Still, the position was a strong one, and it is always a possibility worth considering with the Boer that he may foresee your line of thought, and just go one step further, out of contrariness. General Brabazon therefore halted his centre squadrons and detached a turning force of three companies of Yeomanry to the right. We waited, watching the scouts exchange shots with the Boer picket, and watching--for it was a very pretty sight--the Yeomanry spread out and gallop away to the flank like a pack of hounds in full cry, each independent, yet the whole simultaneous. In a quarter of an hour they were scrambling up the steep sides of the plateau almost in rear of the obstructive picket, which hurriedly departed while time remained. Then the centre swung forward, and the whole Cavalry force advanced again, the greater part of it moving on to the plateau, where a running fight with the Dutch outposts now commenced at long range. Several times we thought that we had unmasked their main position, and that the Cavalry work for the day was over; but each time Brabazon’s turning movement on the right, the execution of which was entrusted to Colonel Sitwell, a very dashing officer of Egyptian note, compelled them to fall back. After an hour of this sort of thing we were in possession of practically the whole of the plateau, which turned out to be of large extent.