"You can knock off at once," Chris said; "I have need for you. You no longer belong to the Maritzburg Scouts." There was a general exclamation of astonishment. "What do you mean, Chris?" "I mean that I have resigned in my own name and yours, and Captain Brookfield has accepted the resignation." "Are you really in earnest, Chris?" "Very much so; but I will not keep you in suspense. A small party of Greytown men are besieged near Botha's Castle; one of them has just ridden in for help. But you know well enough that Buller will not hear of detached parties going out all over the country; and Captain Brookfield told the farmer that it was of no use his going to the general, and that none of the Colonial troops could leave the camp without orders. As it was evident that there was nothing more to be done, and we could not leave the man's friends to be massacred, the only thing to do was to give in our resignation at once; and of course, now that it is done and accepted, we are at liberty to mount and ride off where we please. When we have done our work we will come back and reenlist, and no one will be any the wiser. We shall start in half an hour. We need not take the tent poles, or anything but a blanket and a waterproof sheet." There was lively satisfaction at the news that they were again going to be employed in what they considered their proper work. "What shall we do about the men and stores?" Willesden asked; "you know that those two big boxes of the things we ordered at Maritzburg arrived yesterday." "I think, Willesden, we will take Jack and the two Zulus, and leave Japhet and the Swazis here in charge of the stores, and blankets, and other things we leave behind us. Captain Brookfield will keep an eye on them for us. The farmer is going to ride back with us on one of the spare horses, and the three natives can ride the others. There is a hundredweight of biscuits in the sack that came with the boxes; each of us can take five pounds in his saddle-bag, a tin of cocoa and milk, and a pound or two of bacon. Jack can take a kettle and frying-pan, and the natives their blankets and twenty pounds of mealie flour for themselves and five times as much mealies for the horses. We can get them at the stores that were opened a few days ago." Some of the men from the other tents walked over on seeing the tents pulled down and the waterproof sheets and blankets rolled up, and asked: "Where are you fellows off to?" "We have resigned; we are sick of doing nothing." As it was known that they drew neither pay nor rations, the news did not create much surprise. "You are lucky fellows," one said. "We get no share of the fighting and a full share of the hardships; still, I wonder you do not stop till we are in Ladysmith."