As soon as some of the troops had passed, they lined the bank until the two battalions were over, and then advanced over some low hills, clearing out a few Boers who occupied some advanced trenches. By six o'clock the ferry-boat began to carry the main body across, taking over half a company at a time; but it was not until half-past three in the morning that the horses, waggons, the guns of the brigade, and a howitzer battery were on the northern bank, and the whole brigade established on a ridge a mile beyond the river. The Maritzburg Scouts were delighted at receiving orders on the morning after their arrival at Springfield that they were to move forward at once and encamp close to Spearman's Farm, and to furnish orderlies for carrying messages for the general. They started at once, and after an hour's fast riding arrived at the point assigned to them. Twenty men and an officer were at once sent to the farmhouse. They took with them three tents which they had brought in the regimental waggon, and erected these some fifty yards from the house; the rest of the troop established their camp at a point indicated by a staff officer a quarter of a mile away. It had been two o'clock in the morning before the convoy had reached Springfield, and horses and men were alike tired out; and as soon as breakfast had been prepared and eaten most of the troopers turned in to sleep. Chris and half a dozen of his party, however, obtained leave from Captain Brookfield to ascend Mount Alice and see what was going on. From half-past five a tremendous fire had been kept up on the Boer positions. The naval guns were distributing their heavy lyddite shells among the entrenchments distant from three to six miles, and occasionally throwing up a missile on to the summit of the lofty hill known as Spion Kop away to the left front. Not less steadily or effectively the howitzer battery was pounding the Boer position. At eight o'clock the lads reached the top of Mount Alice, and watched with intense interest the picturesque and exciting scene. Here they were far better able than they had been when at Chieveley to see the general aspect of the country. On the right from Grobler's Kloof hill after hill, separated apparently by shallow depressions, rose, and from the higher points occasional flashes of fire burst out as the guns tried their range against those on Mount Alice, whose heights, however, they failed to reach. Spion Kop stood out steep and threatening, its summit being some hundred feet higher than that of Mount Alice. They could now see that it was not, as it had appeared from the distance, an isolated and almost conical hill, but was, in fact, connected with hills farther to the left by a ridge of which it was the termination.