About eight o'clock on one of those perfect mist-steeped summer mornings that presage a day of burning heat, French's force came in sight of the Boer laagers. As the mist cleared the enemy could be spied in large numbers about the station and the colliery buildings and over the yellow veldt. French ordered the Natal Battery to turn its little seven-pounder on the station. One of the first shots told; and the Boers came tumbling out of their shelter, leaving the trainload of British soldiers, captured the previous night, free to join their comrades. Soon afterwards the station was in the hands of the British, as the result of a dashing cavalry charge. But the Boers were only temporarily dislodged. Their long range guns very soon shelled the station from the neighbouring kopjes with deadly effect. French was compelled to withdraw. The stupidity of the enemy, in leaving the telegraph wires uncut, enabled him immediately to acquaint Sir George White with the peril of his situation. White's orders were emphatic: "The enemy must be beaten and driven off. Time of great importance." The necessary reinforcements were hurried to the spot. [Page Heading: IN HIS ELEMENT] French did not wait for their arrival before striking at the enemy. The Light Horse, under Colonel Scott Chisholme, quickly took possession of a low ridge near the railway station, which fronted the main line of the enemy's kopjes. While he held this ridge French had the satisfaction of seeing infantry, cavalry and artillery coming up the railway line to his assistance. In the late afternoon his force numbered something like three thousand five hundred men, outnumbering the enemy by more than two to one. Those who ask why so many men were required, do not understand the position in which the British force found itself. The enemy were entrenched on a series of high, boulder-strewn tablelands, which offered almost perfect cover. Between these tablelands and French's force lay a wide and partly scrubless stretch of veldt. Over that terrible exposed slope his men must go, before they could come within useful range of the enemy. French was faced with a most perilous and difficult enterprise. However, that is precisely what French likes. He rose to the situation with ready resource. It was not easy to locate the exact position of the enemy ensconced amid these covering hills. So in the afternoon he ordered a simultaneous frontal and flank attack. Just which was front and which was flank it was for his lieutenants to discover. Sir Ian Hamilton's instructions to the infantry were brief but decisive. "The enemy are there," he said, "and I hope you will shift them out before sunset--in fact, I know you will."