Going to a friend’s house, in which some British uniforms were kept as trophies until the police discovered and appropriated them, he dressed in khaki, donned a greatcoat, and armed himself with a Mauser carbine. All this may seem impossible in a town under martial law, but arms and ammunition were found in private houses long after the date of this incident, and nobody ever heard of exemplary punishment being meted out to offenders, who generally got off scot free on a plea of ignorance. At any rate, the young Boer, thus equipped to counterfeit a provisional policeman, sallied forth at night, when a high collar, turned well up for protection against the icy north wind, and a hat slouched over the eyes, would not have attracted any attention. Making use of mental notes previously taken, he placed himself near the corner of a street so much frequented by officers on their way to or from the club that special police seldom troubled to look after it. There he had not long to wait for a chance of challenging, and in response the countersign was given as a matter of course without the least suspicion. Safe in the possession of this password, the ingenious young Boer mounted his horse, and, claiming to be the bearer of despatches, rode past our outlying pickets and off into the darkness on his way to the nearest Boer commando. Some officers of Lumsden’s Horse were in the Pretoria Club that night, but it was not they who gave away the countersign. Occasional visits to Pretoria in the vain hope of finding that some articles of luxury or much-needed outfit could be bought there became great events in the lives of both officers and men during their banishment to lines of communication. Somehow a goodly number of them, for whom sport was an irresistible attraction, managed to assemble on ground a mile outside the racecourse when three score of competitors started for the first military steeplechase ever ridden near Pretoria. After this event Colonel Lumsden wrote with pardonable pride: Beharis will be pleased to hear that Captain Rutherfoord, of ours, won the first paper-chase in Pretoria. There were sixty starters over a stiff country, with the result that grief was plentiful. But that view of the result, though entertained by nearly every spectator who was near enough to watch an exciting finish, did not commend itself to the official whose decision none could question. How it all came about may be told by an eye-witness, who was also a competitor until, finding himself hopelessly out of the race, he took to ‘skirting,’ and finally joined a crowd of onlookers at the winning-post.