Meanwhile Myburg and Fouché had been flitting around the northern borders, while Colonels Monro, Pilcher, Western, General Hart, with Colonel Murray's troops and the Connaught Rangers, guarded the river line from Bethulie to Herschel. The residency at this place was attacked on the 4th, but Major Hook and the local police sent the foe to the right-about with considerable celerity and the loss to them of twenty-nine horses and three men. Everywhere small gangs of Boers made themselves obstreperous, and some made an attempt on Ladygrey, which was promptly repulsed. On the 20th of September, however, Kruitzinger, north of Herschel, endeavoured to force a passage over the Orange, and came into collision with some eighty of Lovat's Scouts under Lieutenant-Colonel Hon. A. D. Murray. The gallant Scotsmen, small in number but large in courage, held on grimly to their post, and the attempt to cross was fiercely resisted, but unhappily with the loss of the brilliant commander, who had led them throughout the campaign with gallantry and distinction. He fell shot through the heart while shouting, "Fix bayonets!"[7] His adjutant, Captain Murray, also fell, and sixteen of his brave men, while one officer and thirty-five men were wounded. A gun was carried off under cover of darkness, but it was promptly followed up and recovered in a smart engagement in which the Boers lost two killed and twenty prisoners. The end of the month, the enemy having withdrawn into the Transkei, was spent by Colonels Monro and Pilcher in watching the passes of the Drakensberg; but later they, with Colonel Western--leaving Colonel Monro and local troops in charge of the area--were recalled to the south-east of the Orange Colony. Commandant Scheepers at this time was making himself obnoxious in the region of the line near Matjesfontein, and to circumvent him General Beatson despatched Colonel Crabbe's column from Waggon Drift on a night march, which helped materially to break down Scheepers strength. The force completely surprised the enemy under Van der Merwe (in a place where they had outspanned some twelve miles east of Laingsburg), killed the commandant--a sporting youth of eighteen, who was considered by his friends as a De Wet in embryo--and one of his followers, wounded many of the burghers, and took thirty-seven prisoners, including Field-Cornet Du Plessis. This was on the 10th. From that time to the 20th Scheepers was kept on the move, and finally after much veering and dodging reached Klip Drift on the 20th. He continued to evade the pursuing columns of Colonels Crabbe, Atherton, and Major Kavanagh till the 5th of October, when this last officer almost captured him. He was attacked at Adams Kraal, twenty miles south-south-west of Ladysmith, and only succeeded in saving himself "by the skin of his teeth."