They see another lying flat as a flap-jack, and reaching stealthily, blindly, over the rough ground to gather little stones--none bigger than a hen's egg. He gets five or six of these and builds a whimsical shelter four inches wide and three inches high. He presses his face in the sand with this ridiculous toy wall in front of his crown. It is the best that he can do, and he is content. He is content until-ten min

utes later an explosive bullet hits his foot, and smashes it as if a heavy sledge-hammer had crushed it.

He calls to the correspondents to bring the stretcherbearers to him. Two of these have been hiding behind an ant-hill for a very long while. To them the correspondents yell, but the bearers are unable to hear. A Tommy looms up ahead dragging a shattered leg, hopping along before a pursuing blizzard of bullets. He, too, calls to the correspondents, "for Heaven's sake, gentlemen, get me to an ambulance. I've been wounded like this for ten hours." At once they forget themselves and their danger, and, telling him with the shattered leg to go and lie by him with the crushed foot, they start through the rain of bullets to try to rouse the two bearers.

They forget themselves and their danger, though there is death at every step-just as every man who is any good forgets self and danger on the battlefield if only he has something definite to do.

Even if he has the jumps, give him a rifle and see

how interested he will become. Send him galloping into the fire on an errand, and his funk will drop from him, as if the bullets had shot it away.

A word of command to those stretcher-bearers brought them quickly to their feet. Then the correspondents had nothing to do, and then again the bullets pinged beside them, and buzzed about them, and they dropped flat on the veldt-with no shelter this time. There they lay a long time. A bullet touched the hair of one; another flew between their heads, which were not eighteen inches apart. Three Tommies in full flight saw them, and ran towards them, bringing a cloud of shot along.

"Keep away! keep away! you fools!" the correspondents shouted. "Get yourselves killed as much as you like, but don't draw the fire on us. Lie down by yourselves, you idiots." This sudden outburst of abuse revealed how great had been the tension on their

nerves.

"It's telling on me," said the young and handsome one, "yet I am not conscious of being afraid."

"There's no room for fear," said the other. “We know our danger. We can't help ourselves, and that's all there is about it. I'm sick of my lime-juice and water. Give me a drink of your plain essence of microbes."

Next a bullet-headed Tommy darted up from behind, and dropped beside the younger correspondent. Just

Heaven! how he was sworn at and abused, as a new hail of bullets showered around the three, attracted by his dash across the veldt.

"If you would pull in that blooming tin pail, and put it under your tummy, you wouldn't git so much o' the blooming bullets. It shoines loike a heliograph." He was right. He referred to a two-quart, bright, new tin water-bottle, which the elder man had left beside him on the ground.

Of all the sublimated fools in any army, this Tommy was the worst. He next asked for a drink, and, taking a covered bottle, raised himself on his elbows, put up his head, lifted the bottle high, and began to quaff. A thousand rifle balls and ten minutes' play of the "putt-putt" showed that this had been accepted as a challenge. Again Tommy was sworn at for an idiotand what was his reply?

"I know it. When I was loying hover there be'ind a hant-'ill, I 'eld up me blooming 'elmet, an' got a 'ole put through it before I could get it down again."

He was quieted by the impressive assurance that he would get a pistol ball through his skull at the next provocation, and for another half-hour he lay still. Then suddenly he said

Gents, I'm blimed tired of planting me nose in the sand, and waiting for it to sprout. What I say is, let's run for it, each one in a different direckshin, so the blooming Boers won't know which to peg at."

"You're a general, Tommy," said the correspondents; "we're with you."

He gave the word. All three ran like mad in different ways, and the Boers directed their fire on the young and handsome correspondent. It was dusk, and jets of flame sprang out of the veldt all round him. But he was not hit.

CHAPTER XXVII

AN OPEN LETTER TO A FIELD-CORNET

To Hermanus Swigelaar, Esq., Boer Farmer, FieldCornet, of Ramdam, Orange Free State.

MODDER RIVER, Feb. 6th.

DEAR SIR,-You know how a man will sometimes leave a little thing behind him when he says good-bye -his goloshes, or umbrella, or gloves.

Well, when I called on you in my Cape cart with a bit of the British army, and you chanced not to be at home, I came away without my cart.

You may have been surprised, but I've seen men and women do more than that. I was walking about Havana once when everybody of both sexes left everything they had, and came out of the houses in just their complexions--but that was because an earthquake occurred at precisely eleven in the morning, when they were all in their baths.

The cart I overlooked is what is called a "cooper cart," and there is not a better in the country, so that it is absurd for you to think I left it as a present to a total stranger, or because I did not want it.