Meanwhile stores, ammunition, warm clothing (for the wintry weather was setting in), and boots were being brought in enormous quantities from the Cape. The wardrobes of the hard-fighting multitude were in sad need of repair, and some wag declared that certain tatterdemalions could only venture abroad after dark, for fear of shocking the Mother Grundys of Bloemfontein. Horses, too, were being gradually collected, for it was felt that until there was a sufficiency of remounts, General French's dashing evolutions would be too costly to be appreciable. The great gallop to Kimberley had cost an immense amount in horse-flesh--about 1500 out of 5000, some said--and, in consequence, the splendid cavalry was again reduced to impotence, just when the Boers, though demoralised by the surrender of Cronje, might have been pursued and punished as they deserved. According to later computation, it was decided that the army must wear out at the rate of 5000 horses a month, and therefore no move could be set on foot till the incoming supply was organised to meet the demand. But for the state of horses and men the Field-Marshal could have stuck to his well-known principle, one acquired from the great Napoleon himself, namely, that a commander-in-chief should never give rest either to the victor or to the vanquished. As it was, he was stuck fast, and the Boers were not slow to take advantage of the opportunity thus given them to recuperate. Up to the time of the Koorn Spruit and Reddersburg disasters things seemed to be ranging themselves satisfactorily, but little by little the authorities began to discover that the entire attitude of the apparently pacified burghers was decidedly false. By degrees they learnt that, instead of disturbing a hornet's nest and clearing it, they had, as it were, got into the midst of it themselves. It became evident that within the town there existed a conspiracy for the purpose not only of supplying the enemy with information, but keeping him ready equipped for hostility. Under the mask of neutrality, certain Germans and others incited the burghers who had laid down their arms to take them up again. This, in the true sense of the word, for it was found that upwards of some 3000 weapons had been buried for use in emergency. But once General Pretyman obtained a true grasp of the situation, and could prove the duplicit nature of the persons with whom he had to deal, the work of weeding and deportation of the obnoxious element of Bloemfontein society was taken in hand. Early in the month a prominent figure was removed from the fighting scene. The death was announced of Colonel the Hon. G. H. Gough[3] at Norval's Pont. This distinguished officer till the time of his death had been acting as Assistant Adjutant-General to General French's Cavalry Division. His services had been many and brilliant, and his loss was deeply deplored.