A very important point to impress on your men is the following. No horseman should believe that he cannot escape capture, or that a bullet will hit him. Let it be clearly understood by all that, as the saying goes, “A horseman and a heavy shower of rain can get through anything.” Snap-shots fired by men in haste, or when excited, never do hit any one who is mounted and moving, especially if the firer is being “peppered” himself. A very good reason this for arranging for covering fire, if only by one rifle, when riding up to ground likely to be held by the enemy’s pickets. Another point to be remembered by scouts is that when they get into the dead ground, which is almost always to be found in front of a hill, they should always change both their pace and direction, and arrive at the top of the hill both sooner and at a different point from where they might be reasonably expected to arrive. Again, scouts in their advance should invariably look out for an alternative line of retreat, especially if they cross an obstacle such as a brook, ditch, or strong fence. They should not expect to see the enemy’s picket or videttes if they deliberately dismount in view and look for them. But if they ride back over a hill, disappear, and then creep back at another point, they are pretty sure to see some heads coming up. In all the arrangements to be made for sending out scouts, never neglect the value of darkness for getting near the enemy’s lines, or through their line of pickets. What can be done with ease then, is impossible in daytime for the cleverest scout in the world, and it is foolish and unfair to scouts to ask them to do this; in fact, it is seldom asked for except by officers unacquainted with their business. All who have attempted to shoot big game, even in a fair moonlight, are aware how uncertain their aim is then. Consequently, if a scout stumbles on a sentry or picket at night, it is twenty chances to one that he gets off without a bullet in him. This fact it is well to remember when posting your own pickets, whom you should protect from being rushed by wires and ropes stretched a foot from the ground, some ten yards or so from their post, rather than trust to their rifle fire, for the “bullet is a fool.” As will be seen from the above, pickets, Cossack posts, and observing parties should be in position, halted and invisible to the enemy before dawn, and should not, as a rule, be withdrawn till dusk covers them from the enemy’s observation. It seems puerile to urge these obviously common-sense precautions, and they would be omitted were it not that experience shows that they are most studiously neglected by our regular and irregular troops till bitter experience teaches their necessity.[59]