Major King, of General Hunter's staff, now arrived in camp with a Boer prisoner, one of Prinsloo's staff. The latter was being sent through with a message to De Wet, informing him of the full magnitude of the Boer surrender at Golden Gate, and advocating his own relinquishment of further operations. They went through to the Boers' position, and were courteously received, but General De Wet declared it was impossible for him to think of giving up now, as he had President Steyn with him. Nobody believed in the excuse, and its purport is somewhat difficult to understand, but it ended the conference, and Major King and his prisoner returned to camp. Major English, whose eye had proved troublesome and kept him behind, now rejoined the battalion, to everybody's gratification, for the publication of Lord Roberts's army order, which took place at this time, had made us all very proud of him and his men. On the 5th an order was given to send out a small force, consisting of two companies of the regiment, a pompom, and a troop of Marshall's Horse, to a point five miles N.N.E. of the camp, in order to fill up a somewhat big gap between General Hart and the 3rd Cavalry Brigade. 'B' and 'G' companies, under an officer of the regiment, with Captain Nelson, R.M.L.I., and Lieutenants Smith and Molony as subalterns, and Lieutenant Nek of Marshall's Horse, were selected, and started as soon as the men's dinners were finished. General Hart rode out later on, and, catching this force up, selected a site, and gave orders to the officer commanding it to dig himself in, promising that the pompom, which had not turned up, should be sent on. In the meantime the remainder of General Hart's force also started digging, a very different state of affairs to his premeditated attack a couple of days earlier. The detachment sent out patrols on the morning of the 6th to see if they could draw the enemy's fire, with strict injunctions to content themselves with doing so and then withdraw. This they soon succeeded in doing. On their return they passed a farmhouse, and received information that an important Boer General was in the habit of sleeping there sometimes. Visions of a capture of De Wet inflamed the minds of some of the younger officers, and on the night of the 6th-7th Captain Nelson and Lieutenant Smith, with a few picked men, made a raid on the house. However, they found nobody but womenfolk, and returned empty-handed.