The next moment Ingleborough’s rifle cracked, and a second pony began to walk on three legs, while the party opened out, galloping so as to form a half-circle about their enemies, the two ends resting on the river bank and forming a radius of about three hundred yards.
“Sixteen more ponies to bring down,” said Ingleborough; “and those two dismounted men will take cover and begin to stalk us.”
“That’s what the whole party will do!” said West bitterly. “We shall hit no more ponies: they’ll get them all into cover, and then come creeping nearer and nearer.”
At that moment Ingleborough fired again right in front where one of the Boers dismounted among some trees.
“There’s one more though,” said Ingleborough, for the poor brute he had fired at reared up and then fell, to lie kicking on its flank. “Try for another yourself, lad!”
Before he had finished speaking West had fired again, and another pony was hit, to come tearing towards them, dragging its dismounted rider after it, for the man clung to the reins till he was jerked off his feet and drawn along the ground some fifty yards, when his head came in contact with a stone, and he lay insensible, his pony galloping for another hundred yards and then falling, paralysed in its hindquarters.
And now the Boers’ bullets began to rattle about the stones which protected the hidden pair, keeping them lying close and only able to fire now and then; but they got chances which they did not miss of bringing down, killing, or disabling five more of the enemy’s ponies, which upon being left alone began to graze, and naturally exposed themselves.
Maddened by their losses and inability to see their foes, the Boers kept reducing the distance, creeping from stone to bush and from bush to stone, rendering the defenders’ position minute by minute one of greater peril.
But the danger did not trouble West. It only increased the excitement from which he suffered, and, with his eyes flashing in his eagerness, he kept on
