In fact, I was surrounded by men who would have been only too pleased to do me an injury.
I said farewell to Kroonstad at ten o'clock that night, and was carried to Rhenosterriviersbrug, thirty-four miles from Kroonstad, by the last train that left the town.

But before I departed, I took care that the bridge over the Valsch River should be destroyed by dynamite.
In the meantime, those portions of the Heilbron and Kroonstad commandos which had gone into Natal at the beginning of the war, received orders to leave the Drakensberg.

Obeying these orders they joined me, and, with my other troops, had occupied splendid positions on either side of the railway line.

Commandant General Louis Botha was also there with his Transvaal burghers, having arrived in the Free State a few days previously.

Captain Danie Theron was still with me as my trustworthy scout, and he constantly kept me informed of Lord Roberts' movements.
For a few days Lord Roberts remained at Kroonstad, but about the 18th of May he again began to move his enormous forces.