He was first captured while trying to warn the British from the
fatal drift at Thaba'nchu. When reconnoitring alone in the morning
mist he came upon the Boers hiding on the banks of the river,
toward which the English were even then advancing. The Boers
were moving all about him, and cut him off from his own side. He
had to choose between abandoning the English to the trap or
signalling to them, and so exposing himself to capture. With the
red kerchief the scouts carried for that purpose he wigwagged to
the approaching soldiers to turn back, that the enemy were
awaiting them. But the column, which was without an advance
guard, paid no attention to his signals and plodded steadily on into
the ambush, while Burnham was at once made prisoner. In the
fight that followed he pretended to receive a wound in the knee
and bound it so elaborately that not even a surgeon would have
disturbed the carefully arranged bandages. Limping heavily and
groaning with pain, he was placed in a trek wagon with the officers
who really were wounded, and who, in consequence, were not
closely guarded. Burnham told them who he was and, as he
intended to escape, offered to take back to head-quarters their
names or any messages they might wish to send to their people. As
twenty yards behind the wagon in which they lay was a mounted
guard, the officers told him escape was impossible.
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