"Can't hear it now, sir," whispered the sentry; "but I felt sure I heard something." "Wait again," said Lennox softly; and there was a good five minutes' interval of waiting, but not a sound could be heard. "Let's go forward, Bob," whispered Lennox; and after telling the sentry to be well upon the alert, he led his men slowly and cautiously straight away out into the black darkness of the veldt, but without hearing another sound till they were, as far as could be judged, a good two hundred yards from the last outpost, when the men were halted and stood in the black darkness listening once more, before swinging: round to the right and getting back by a curve to somewhere near the starting-place. The next moment the young men joined hands and stood listening to an unmistakable sound away to their right and nearer to the kopje. The sound was distant enough to be very soft, but there it was, plainly enough--the calm, quiet crunching up of the food a span of oxen had eaten, indicative of the fact that they had been pulled up by their drivers and were utilising their waiting time by chewing the cud. "Forward!" whispered Lennox, and his men crept after him without a sound, every one full of excitement, for the general idea was that they were about to surprise some convoy wagon that had gone astray. A minute later the munching of the oxen sounded quite loudly, and the little party was brought to a halt by a deep, gruff voice saying in Boer Dutch: "What a while you've been! How much higher can we get?" "Fix bayonets!" cried Lennox sharply, and a yell of dismay arose, followed by a dozen random shots, as the metallic clinking of the keen, dagger-like weapons was heard against the muzzles of the men's rifles. The shots fired seemed to cut the black darkness, and the exploded powder spread its dank, heavy fumes in the direction of the men's faces, but as far as Lennox could make out in the excitement of leading his party on in a charge, no one was hurt; and the next minute his little line was brought up short, several of the men littering angry ejaculations, and as many more bursting into a roar of laughter. CHAPTER FOUR. WAYS AND MEANS. "Here, what in the name of wonder!" cried Dickenson angrily. "Yah! Keep those horns quiet, you beast." "What is it?" cried Lennox excitedly. "Roast-beef, sir--leastwise to-morrow, sir," cried one of the men. "We've bay'neted a team of oxen." "Speak the truth, lad," cried another from Lennox's left. "We've been giving point in a gun-carriage." "Silence in the ranks!" cried Lennox sternly as he felt about in the darkness, joined now by his comrade, and found that their charge had been checked by a big gun, its limber, and the span--six or eight and twenty oxen--several of the poor beasts having received thrusts from the men's bayonets.