He had no other white man near him but ourselves, and we knew that barely eighteen miles away there was a garrison of two hundred Germans, not to mention the police along the actual border. The dispatch appeared to point to a possible raid on him at any moment, and we offered to stand by him till help arrived, as it surely would. Meanwhile we were working on the very edge of German territory, and our camp stood within a stone’s throw of it; our horses and cattle were in the habit of ranging over it at their sweet will, for there was no fence or actual boundary, and as the news spread amongst the “boys” I had hard work to keep them from bolting. We worked feverishly all the next morning, German patrols passing in full view of us, but not molesting us. Meanwhile another trooper had arrived from Kakamas with the news that war had been declared on the previous Thursday. Fugitive Hottentots were now stealing over the border, and the news they brought appeared to point to a possible raid by the Germans, who had now forced their own farmers all along the border to drive their cattle twenty kilometres inland. Our own “boys,” who had gone to look for the strayed horses, were chased for a couple of miles into our territory; and as we now heard that the well-disposed German mounted police who had been stationed along the border had been withdrawn, and their place taken by regular troops from Ukamas, we were more on the _qui vive_ than ever. Still, I kept the gang hard at it, knowing that I could only work a few days unless the strong reinforcements we naturally expected were soon forthcoming. Meanwhile Hall and Green returned from Upington, and a further man came in from Kakamas, so the little garrison was now five men strong. They had scarcely enough rations to keep them going, and were in hourly expectation of the arrival of a force of some kind to hold the line. The position of the little police hut could scarcely have been worse, from a defensive point of view. It was commanded on all sides by rocky, bush-clad ridges, in which ten thousand Germans could have hidden, and barely a quarter of a mile away, in German territory, rose a formidable _spitz kop_ (conical hill), from the summit of which every approach to the British post could have been commanded. The place could have been rushed at any moment. The trooper in charge told me that his orders were to do nothing to provoke hostilities, and if attacked, to make no attempt to hold the post, but to fall back on Zwartmodder--forty miles away--where there were two men! But he realised only too well that, should such an attack be made, he would have no earthly chance of getting away. But we all fully expected a column to turn up to garrison this important--though neglected--little post; and day after day one of the men would ride to the high hills eastward, from which the roads to Upington could be seen for many miles, but there came no sign--no news; in fact, Nakob seemed to have been forgotten.