He proved
otherwise. The trek wagon was drawn by sixteen oxen and driven
by a Kaffir boy. Later in the evening, but while it still was
moonlight, the boy descended from his seat and ran forward to
belabor the first spans of oxen. This was the opportunity for which
Burnham had been waiting.
Slipping quickly over the driver's seat, he dropped between the two
"wheelers" to the disselboom, or tongue, of the trek wagon. From
this he lowered himself and fell between the legs of the oxen on
his back in the road. In an instant the body of the wagon had
passed over him, and while the dust still hung above the trail he
rolled rapidly over into the ditch at the side of the road and lay
motionless.
It was four days before he was able to re-enter the British lines,
during which time he had been lying in the open veldt, and had
subsisted on one biscuit and two handfuls of "mealies," or what we
call Indian corn.
Another time when out scouting he and his Kaffir boy while on
foot were "jumped" by a Boer commando and forced to hide in
two great ant-hills. The Boers went into camp on every side of
them, and for two days, unknown to themselves, held Burnham a
prisoner. Only at night did he and the Cape boy dare to crawl out
to breathe fresh air and to eat the food tablets they carried in their
pockets. On five occasions was Burnham sent into the Boer lines
with dynamite cartridges to blow up the railroad over which the
enemy was receiving supplies and ammunition.
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