To begin with, Tom organised a regular body of scouts, incorporating some of his own men with those furnished by his new ally, M’setu. Always keeping in mind his alternative ultimate designs, either to trek into British territory or to hold his ground until the British overran the border, he determined, when the scouts became proficient, to patrol the whole country between the nullah and the Neu Langenburg road. The defeat of the Germans at Abercorn was very heartening: clearly they were not to have the easy conquest that Reinecke had apparently expected. At the same time, it was only too likely that their preparations were much more advanced than the British, and he could not hope that the Germans would yield the largest and most precious of their colonial possessions without a bitter struggle. It was also certain that the enemy would at some time or other make a serious effort to crush this mutiny; and while, in such a vast and well wooded country, he could not have commanded every possible avenue of approach even with ten times as many men as were available for scouting, he would at least make reasonably sure that any movement of the enemy on the main tracks should be reported to him. At first he sent out one of the Wahehe with each of M’setu’s men, and practised them in watching the movements of small parties of M’setu’s people within a few miles of the nullah. Presently, in order to increase the number of his fighting-men, he accustomed M’setu’s men to scout alone. By degrees he extended their field of operations until at length he had established a definite chain, or rather network, of scouting-posts commanding the principal tracks from Bismarckburg, and especially the main frontier road to Neu Langenburg. Within a month no enemy force or convoy could move along the frontier without Tom’s hearing of it. The reports were at first brought to him by runners, and reached him many hours late. Could he not devise some means of saving time and exertion alike? He remembered having read, in a book of travels, how the natives of the mountainous interior of New Guinea were accustomed to shout news from height to height. The hills to the south of his own position would lend themselves admirably to a similar system, and after a few rather heart-breaking experiments he succeeded in teaching the negroes to adopt this plan. Each prominent hill was given a name; the man stationed at any particular post had to shout the name to the next, and within a very few minutes Tom at the nullah learnt that a message had been dispatched by a scout perhaps forty miles away.