CHAPTER TEN.
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.
Under other circumstances I should have leaped down from my horse and crouched; but my leg had grown still and cold, so I sat perfectly motionless, trying to make out some plan of action I might follow out.
To my dismay, the Boers had been quicker than I had given them credit for, and had, so to speak, shut the principal gate in the huge wall which in that particular part closed in their country from Natal.

The man I had seen was doubtless one of their outposts, and for aught I knew to the contrary the pass might be held by hundreds of the sturdy burghers, every man a born rifleman.

To go back by the way I came meant running into the arms of those who were scouring the country to retake me, while to make a detour and get round to the other side of the opening meant getting farther into the Boer country, the more populous part, where their troops would for certain now be on the move.
It seemed there was no going backward; and upon turning to look at Joeboy he showed he was of the same opinion.

"No go back," he said; "all Boer.

Wait till sun gone." "And try to steal through the pass then," I said eagerly, "in the dark ?" "Um!" he said.