These men gave the enemy no rest, and by repeated attacks at last rid the town of any immediate danger of being rushed by the blacks.
Baden-Powell's work when he arrived was almost entirely confined to the office; and working at a desk from early morning to late at night, with no prospect of an early closing movement, began to tell upon his spirits.

He became convinced that "our force is far too small adequately to cope with so numerous and fairly well-armed an enemy, with well-nigh impregnable strongholds to fall back on....

Our force, bold as it is, is far too small, and yet we cannot increase it by a man, for the simple reason that if we did we could not find the wherewithal to feed it." If this sort of thing had gone on much longer B.-P.

might have learned to look glum for an entire five minutes; but one night at ten o'clock, when he and Sir Frederick Carrington were putting up the shutters of office, into the town rode Burnham, the famous American scout, with news of a large impi of the enemy about three miles outside Buluwayo.

This necessitated action, and B.-P.