The Yeomanry and a few men of Brabant's Scouts were utilised to furnish a picket by day on the top of Tafelburg, a high square-crowned kopje, about 3 miles to the north-west, from which an extensive view could be obtained; and a couple of mounted men were kept by day at some of the pickets, in case of necessity, to carry messages or go after suspicious passers-by. All the pickets were in signalling communication with each other and with headquarters in the town; sometimes helio messages were received from Bethlehem, about 35 miles to the south-east, whose garrison was apparently similarly situated to ourselves; and occasionally, at long intervals, a runner arrived from Kroonstad with microscopic messages--usually containing news, unimportant to us at all events, such as the state of the Czar's health, but very little information as to how things were going on with regard to our move to India, about which we were most concerned. Occasionally a few of the mounted men would go out at night, and surround a farm or two in hopes of catching a few Boers who might be indulging in the unwonted luxury of a night's rest in a bed; but only once did they meet with any success, and then they caught a solitary Boer who gave us a deal of trouble to look after. Lieut. Harden and Lieut. Montgomerie had the honour of catching this sportsman, who seemed to have been a fighting Boer from the yarns he told with regard to the fights in which he had taken part; but most of his stories had to be taken _cum grano salis_. On the 3rd of December, however, the Boers treated us to an alarm about half-past nine at night: they crawled up a donga which ended in a short outcrop of rocks within four hundred yards of one of the detached posts then occupied by B company. The rocks afforded splendid natural cover in capital positions for firing from, and the Boers, about a dozen of them, opened a smart fire at the eight men occupying the small defensive work, who, nothing loath, replied with vigour, blazing away at the flashes of the enemy's rifles. One Boer must have been hit, as some blood was found on the grass the next day. The enemy fired about 500 rounds, judging from the cartridge cases lying in little heaps behind the rocks, and our men got rid of about the same number. One or two of the Boers had the impertinence (it was nothing less!) to try and stalk the picket by dodging up towards them from post to post of a line of fencing which ran in their direction; but, coming to a gap where one or two posts were missing, their hearts failed them, and they went no further. None of our men were hit, but the stone loopholes and the parapet of the post were splashed with bullet marks in five or six places.