Scores of officers gave the boy a sovereign for his pluck, and he wore his cap all through the siege in a very swagger fashion. Some of the regiments had their pet dogs in Ladysmith. When the King’s Royals went into action their regimental dog went with them. He had never been out of the fighting line, and had never had a scratch, but seemed to enjoy the fun of barking and looking back, saying, “Come on--faster!” There was another, a little red mongrel, who insisted on seeing every phase of warfare; he had lost a leg in India--it was so smashed up that the doctor had to cut it off. There he was, pottering about on three legs, full of inquisitive ardour, and when not engaged on sanitary inspection work, always to the front when the guns were at it. This was the Hussars’ dog. The Boers were fond of playing practical jokes. On Christmas Day they had fired a shell containing a plum-pudding into the artillery camp. On the hundred and first day of the siege one of the Boers on Bulwana Hill called up the signallers at Cæsar’s Camp, and flashed the message, “A hundred and one, not out.” The Manchesters flashed back: “Ladysmith still batting.” “What is the use of shelling these Britishers?” once said a Boer artilleryman. “They just go on playing cricket. Look yonder!” Ah! but that was in the early days of the siege, when they had some strength in them. Later, after having short rations of horse-flesh, they could hardly creep from hill to hill. Another day a heliograph message came: “How do you like horse-meat?” “Fine,” was the answer, “When the horses are finished we shall eat baked Boer!” It became very difficult to get letters through the Boer pickets; they had so many ways of trapping the native runners. The Kaffir paths were watched; bell-wires were doubled--one placed close to the ground, the other at the height of a man’s head. When the Kaffir touched one of these an electric bell rang on one of the kopjes, or hills, and swarms of guards swooped down to intercept him. But the Kaffir, being paid £15 a journey, did his best too. He left the outer line of our pickets at dusk, and flitted away silently to the nearest native kraal; he handed in the letters to the black chief, and wandered on empty-handed towards General Buller’s camp. Meanwhile a simple Kaffir girl would pass the Boer camp, calabash on head, going to fetch water from the spring in the early morning. The letters were in the empty water-vessel! She put them under a stone by the spring, and another maiden would come from the other side, and take them on in her calabash or mealie-jar. At last the native runner would call for them and carry the letters to the English lines.