At last we came to fighting battles that were surprises--to meeting Boer forces where we were told there were no Boers. When, at Modder River, Mr. Knox, of Reuter's, and I saw a large force of Boers ahead, and rode back to tell our friends in the army what we had seen, we were informed that what we announced was ridiculous. There were only "three hundred Boers within a dozen miles," and these would be quickly dislodged by our Ninth Lancers. We were to meet the Boers at Spytfontein, miles and miles ahead. Nevertheless, in fifteen minutes we began one of the chief battles of the war, against the largest force that had up to that time opposed our army. The next day saw us in the village of Modder River, welcomed by the men of the place, whose shops and taverns had been preserved in the very midst of the Boer army by--by what shall we say? It must have been either by the force of comradeship with the Boers or by miraculous and Divine intervention; one or the other, for there is no explanation of the phenomenon outside of these two alternatives. Did a single man from that village manage to cross the drift and warn us that six miles of trenches were ready to be filled by Boers when we should reach there? And why did no single individual among all these "friends" do us that service? Our guides and others rode far forward, and were gone for hours. What did they see or find, and why did they not discover the facts? We were fooled! fooled!! fooled!!! Without martial law in force behind us, as it should have been in force from Capetown to Kimberley, at the very beginning of the war, without maps of the country, surrounded by malignant enemies, who were the more dangerous in that they declared themselves friends. Knowing nothing, but betrayed in everything, we stumbled on--into Modder battle, up against Maghersfontein Kopje--fooled and tricked and played with for months on end. We caught one of two men who fired at us from beneath the white flag at Belmont. The other one our soldiers killed, but the one we caught--what of him? The quicker he was hanged and left hanging on top of a high kopje the sooner would have ended the contempt of the Boers for our methods, and the sooner would have come the end of the war. But I never was able to learn that he was treated otherwise than were the rest of our prisoners. When we came to a village like Modder River, where the Boers had been entertained and assisted in bridge-destroying and trench-digging, did we _reconcentrado_ the little population? What a lesson to the disloyal, what a strength to our arms that would have been! We did nothing; we left them in their homes; we found them with Boer warrants for pay for forage on their persons; we saw them slipping to and from our camp at night, while by day they loitered around our headquarters and told us how loyal they were. Fooled were we--to the brim, up to our eyes, past all understanding.