While General Elliot was placing his force in the position above described, precautionary measures had to be taken against a recrudescence of mischief in the direction of Kimberley. Report spoke of a contemplated reinforcement of the guerillas in the Cape Colony by recruits from the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal. General Smuts was associated with the movement, and the swelling hordes were to join and pass through Hoopstad on their career of devastation. Accordingly Colonel Henry, who was moving between Bloemhof and Christiana, was appointed to keep an eye on the Hoopstad district. On the 16th of July he crossed the Vaal at a point some twenty-three miles south-west of Hoopstad, and promptly secured some prisoners, waggons, and horses that were doubtless about to form part of the reinforced commando. On the 24th, in this district, he was joined by Major Paris, R.M.A., with the Kimberley column, which he had summoned from Warrenton. This officer on the way had come in collision with some 150 of the enemy, and had succeeded, through the gallantry of Dennison's Scouts, in routing them from a strong position. The day after, effecting a juncture with Colonel Henry's force, he again came on the enemy under Commandants Badenhorst and Erasmus, and Field-Cornet Van Aswegan. The Boers were in some strength, but Major Paris's little force (consisting of 230 mounted men, 2 guns, a pom-pom, and 30 infantry, carried in carts) was equal to the occasion. The Boers were surrounded and attacked from three sides, and after a running fight, in which the 74th Squadron Imperial Yeomanry, the Kimberley Light Horse, and Dennison's Scouts distinguished themselves, the enemy dispersed with amazing celerity, leaving seven burghers on the field and their field-cornet a prisoner. One of the British party was killed and three were wounded. Brigadier-General Gilbert Hamilton's column was also on the track of the raiders, he having moved from Klerksdorp to Wolmaranstad (on the 21st) in order to fulfil his share of the hunt. At Wolmaranstad he remained not long inactive, for the news of slinking Boers in the neighbouring kopjes came to his ears, and he quickly determined on a surprise visit to their haunts. The dawn of the 26th found Commandant Potgieter and his hardy crew surrounded in their laager at Blinklip, and General Hamilton, at the cost of only two men wounded, succeeded in putting eleven Boers out of action and securing ten more, together with waggons, horses, and supplies. Farther to the east on the line of the Vaal, Colonel Western--who also had been at Klerksdorp--spent his time in reconnoitring along both banks of the river to Venterskroom and back to Coalmine Drift, where he was in a position to join the columns of Colonel Henry and General Elliot, which were ranging themselves in readiness for the main sweep south from the Vaal, on the west of the main line.