The cloud was drifting up, and it could not be long before it would burst.
Two days later, on the early morning of October 20th, the forces came at last into collision.

At half-past three in the morning, well before daylight, the mounted infantry picket at the junction of the roads from Landmans and Vants Drifts was fired into by the Doornberg commando, and retired upon its supports.

Two companies of the Dublin Fusiliers were sent out, and at five o'clock on a fine but misty morning the whole of Symons's force was under arms with the knowledge that the Boers were pushing boldly towards them.

The khaki-clad lines of fighting men stood in their long thin ranks staring up at the curves of the saddle-back hills to the north and east of them, and straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of the enemy.

Why these same saddle-back hills were not occupied by our own people is, it must be confessed, an insoluble mystery.