The dinner at the hotel bore few signs of the long siege. Supplies had been got up, and some of the principal inhabitants had returned, and though at Bloemfontein things had been well managed and comfortable, the style in which meals were served was very inferior to that which had already been attained at Kimberley. Some ten or twelve officers joined Colonel Mahon's party. No allusion whatever was made to the intended expedition, which was kept a profound secret, as even at Kimberley there were many Boer sympathizers, and it was all-important that no rumour of the approaching departure of a large body of horse should be known to them. It was to consist of the Imperial Light Horse, which had arrived from Natal, the Kimberley mounted corps, the Diamond Field Horse, a party of Imperial Yeomanry, and a detachment of the Cape Police, a horse artillery battery with four guns and two machine-guns, a hundred men of the Fusiliers to guard the waggons, fifty-two waggons with ten mules each, and a number of spare horses to take the place of any that might break down. The force amounted in all to twelve hundred men. Not even to the officers who commanded the different corps was their destination made known until the morning of the 4th of May, when the force had ridden out from Kimberley. Yorke had placed himself altogether under Colonel Mahon's orders, and had looked after many of the details connected with the waggons and provisions. The store of food carried was quite enough to last fourteen days, this being the outside limit of the time that the march was likely to occupy. Once off there was no delay. The mules and the waggons did their work well, and the force moved round to the west of the position of a large body of Boers, who were opposing Methuen's advance by the line of railway, and on the 9th marched into Vryburg, having done a hundred and twenty miles in five days. They halted here for a day to rest the animals, and on the 11th they started again. Hitherto not a shot had been fired. From this point they were watched by the enemy, as their arrival at Vryburg had been at once notified to the Boers, and at Koodoosrand a force was found posted in a strong position in front of them. Mahon, whose object was not to fight but to relieve Mafeking, moved off to the westward; but here the country was found to be thickly covered with bush, which greatly impeded the progress of the waggons, and presently the enemy, leaving their position, threw themselves across his path. There was a sharp but short encounter, and the Boers were soon in flight. The casualties in killed and wounded on our side were only thirty. On the 15th the relieving column arrived at a village twenty miles to the west of Mafeking, where, within an hour of their entry, they were joined by Plumer's force, which had just been strengthened by the arrival of four twelve-pounder guns of the Canadian artillery, and a party of Queenslanders.