Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, under Captain Colenbrander, Major Mullins, and Colonel Gorringe converged from their various positions, while the main body made for Blaankrantz. On the 20th, by 9 A.M., a hammer-and-tongs engagement had begun, Captain Doune's two guns being met by a blizzard from the foe in the surrounding ridges. The assailants were, however, rapidly silenced and forced to retire, the British party taking up the vacated position, and "speeding the parting guest" with a salvo from pom-poms, rifles, and field-guns. But the enemy could not be entirely netted, for in ones and twos they squeezed through the bushes and made their escape. Four, however, were left on the veldt, and four were taken prisoners, while about one hundred sound horses came in handy at a time when they were much in demand. The British force lost three killed and four wounded. [Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL SIR H. H. SETTLE. Photo Elliott & Fry, London.] Kruitzinger at this time was being gradually pressed towards the Orange River (which was known to be unfordable) by Colonel de Lisle's column, which formed part of a cordon, composed of the columns of Colonels Gorringe, Herbert, and Major Crewe on one side, and Colonels Crabbe, Codrington, and Henniker on the other. Nearly all the commandos which had invaded the Colony were retracing their sorry steps after the failure of their expedition. The fact that they had been able to keep the field so long was attributed to the persistent way in which they avoided fighting, and their mode of hugging the sheltering kopjes and bushes, and never emerging from those beneficent harbours of refuge. According to good authority, the raiders succeeded in gaining certain recruits among the Colonial Dutch, but not nearly so many as they had expected. They were amply supplied with food from the sympathetic rural population, however, and received on all sides timely information of the movements of the pursuing columns, which enabled them to double like hares at the very moment when the pursuers seemed about to pounce on them.