Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1917 — DE WET WAS HARD TO CATCH [ARTICLE]

DE WET WAS HARD TO CATCH

Beer Leader Took Delight in Telling of His Achievements In Evad- * Ing the Pursuing Britons. Of the three great figures that emerged on the Boer side in the war of defense that developed after Ladysmith —Botha, De Wet and Delarey— De Wet was much the most impressive. His face was a study In resistance, says Harold Spender in General Botha, the Career and the Man. His body seemed all muscle. Looking on him, one could understand the fear that he inspired in his own men. But it was his schemes of escape, almost miraculous in their cunning, that perplexed an empire and puzzled a planet. On one or two occasions I have seen his face light up when he referred to one of his own achievements in evasion, and of those achievements one still stands out. in nay memory, _ One evening, after a long day’s march —so he told us—all his wanderings seemed to have come to an end. The lights of the British bivouac fires twinkled from every point of the horizon. De Wet, as was his wont, went apart from his men and sat alone in dumb despair. Then there came to him softly one of those wonderful scouts who served him so well. The scout had discovered a slight gap in the British lines between two regiments that were not quite keeping touch. In a moment De Wet was on his feet. Within an hour every horse’s foot was muffled with cloth or wool and every wagon wheel was swathed. The Boer camp fires were lighted and were left burning brightly. Then the wijple Boer force crept out through the darkness of the night in utter silence. penetrated the gap in the British lines and started on a new course of fugitive warfare.—Youth’s Companion.