These troops had performed a marvellous march. On their arrival from Canada and Queensland respectively they had been brought round by ship to Beira, carried by train to the plateau of Rhodesia, from there in vehicles a hundred miles to Buluwayo, then by train over four hundred miles to Ootsi, and had then pushed on on foot for four days over terribly bad roads at the rate of twenty-five miles a day, and had been with Plumer only a few hours. There was no fear now that they would fail to gain the success they had striven for, as their united force was stronger than that with which Snyman could oppose them. The Boer commander, however, would not retire without one last effort, and he planted his force on a hill which commanded the water supply; but after he had held his ground for an hour, his guns were silenced, and he retired past Mafeking to the trenches on the eastern side. Here, however, the Boers had no rest, for Baden-Powell sallied out with his garrison, and Mahon's guns opened upon them, so that ere long they withdrew and retreated eastward. Mafeking was free at last! Only six days before, fearing doubtless that relief would come ere long, and possibly hearing that a large cavalry force was nearing Vryburg, the Boers made the most determined attempt to capture Mafeking that had occurred during the siege. Early on the morning of the 12th three hundred volunteers, under the command of Eloff, a grandson of Kruger, crept up to the west of the besiegers' line and reached the native quarters, to which they at once set fire. The barracks of the Protectorate Regiment were held by Hore and some twenty of his men. These, after a stout defence, were compelled to surrender. Two other positions within the line were captured, and had Snyman sent up his support at once, affairs might have ended badly; but this failed to arrive. The telephone and telegraph wires called up the defenders from all parts of the town. These gradually surrounded the positions the Boers had taken, and prevented any reinforcements from reaching them. Knowing that unless aided they must surrender in time, Baden-Powell refused to allow the loss of life that must ensue if the Boers were attacked, and contented himself with preventing them from being reinforced, and at seven in the evening Eloff, finding his position desperate, surrendered. The defence of Mafeking ranks with that of Ladysmith in the stubbornness of the resistance which it, an open town, made against a powerful enemy, and is the more remarkable inasmuch as the garrison consisted entirely of irregulars, with but two or three guns of the smallest calibre, while the enemy had far more numerous and powerful artillery. For six months the little garrison had maintained an unflinching defence, during which time their spirits, and it may be said their gaiety, never flagged under any privation, hardship, or work.