Richmond Road is not a township. It is only a railway-station, but it boasts of one _winkel_[11] adjoining the railway buildings. Here the O.C. of the New Cavalry Brigade had taken up his quarters for the night, and here the Jew proprietor had arranged food and lodging for the staff. Part barn, part shop, and part dwelling, this dilapidated hostelry is typical of its kind. You meet with them all over the South African veldt. You bless them when they shelter you from the wind and rain; curse them when, housed in a six-storeyed mansion, which boasts the same legend over the door--hotel--you remember to what you were at one time reduced by the chances of a soldier's life. The brigadier was just sitting down to the only meal that the slatternly wife of the Jew could produce--a steaming mess of lean boiled mutton--when the Intelligence officer returned from his adventure. "Come and sit down, Mr Intelligence; have you raised a band of robbers yet?" "Yes, sir; I've collected a trooper of Rimington's Guides and some boys." "You seem a brighter fellow than I took you for. Well, here you are; here is another telegram for you. We ought to come right on the top of the swine to-morrow." _To Intelligence N.C.B. from Int. De Aar._ "Gathering of rebels at Nieuwjaarsfontein confirmed from two sources. Repeated, &c." The Intelligence officer kept his own counsel. He felt certain that there would be no gathering at Nieuwjaarsfontein when the force arrived. But he had bought his experience, and determined to profit by the same in the future.