186 AN ANGLER'S SEASON 



gamekeepers, is nothing less than a hero 

 of the battlefield. 



To set him in a true light, I must 

 sketch an unrecorded episode in our war 

 with the South- African Republics. 



Two squadrons of the Scottish Horse 

 had been out on trek for a time which 

 was much too long. It was many a week 

 since they had been near a railway ; the 

 men were ill-clothed, ill-fed, in general 

 out-of-sorts. Most of their old officers 

 had been killed or wounded, and they 

 were away from Lord Tullibardine's 

 control. Between them and the Column 

 Commander, who was new to his post, 

 there was some little lack of under- 

 standing. 



Report says that, hearing about this, 

 the Officer Commanding the Scottish 

 Horse, of which there were three 

 regiments, warned Lord Kitchener that 

 trouble was not improbable. Thereupon, 

 and acting upon a hint received from the 

 men themselves that things were wrong, 

 he galloped eighty miles in a day to see 



