"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 showing the Boers where he lay by firing at every opportunity, religiously keeping his aim for the ponies, in the full belief that before long the Boers would retire.
"It's no good to play that game!" cried Ingleborough suddenly, and he made a quick movement, turning a little to his right and firing.
There was a hoarse yell, and a man sprang up not above a hundred yards away, dropped his rifle, and turning round he began to stagger away.
"You are firing at the Boers, Ingle," cried West excitedly.
"Yes: it was time!" growled Ingleborough, through his teeth, with his voice sounding hoarse and strange.

"I've hit three.

Two haven't moved." "What's the matter ?" asked West, in a tone of anxiety, for he felt that something serious had happened to his comrade.
"Don't talk," growled Ingleborough angrily.

"Look! Those two.