assagai in um
back if he talk, and drive right 'way."

"Ha!" I said, with a heavy expiration of the breath. "But do you
understand what he means?"

"Oh yes, I understand," said Denham, laughing; "but where are the
Doppies going to be all the while?"

"Lying somewhere about, of course, asleep," I said excitedly; "but there
would be no sentries over the wagons; and, as he says, the black
foreloper and driver would be sleeping underneath."

"Oh, that's right enough," said Denham impatiently. "But the noise, the
rattle of the wagon, the getting of the oxen, and all the rest of it?"

"The oxen would be all lying down with the trek-rope between them, and
they'll quietly do what their black driver and foreloper wish. I think
it could be done."

"My dear boy, it's madness."

"It isn't," I said angrily. "Joeboy is right, and a trick like this
would perhaps succeed when force would fail. We must capture one of
those wagons."

"Oh, I'd have the lot while I was about it," cried Denham, laughing.

"Be sensible," I cried pettishly. "Joeboy is right. Can't you see that
it is the sheer impudence of the thing that would carry it through?"

"No, old chap," he replied; "that I can't."

"Well, I can," I said firmly. "The black driver and foreloper could be
roused out of their sleep, and they take it as a matter of course that
they were to drive the wagon somewhere else, and obey at once,
especially if they are hurried by some one who speaks like a Boer."

"Well, I grant that's possible," said Denham; "but what about the Boer
sentries and outposts? They'd stop you before you'd gone straight away
for a hundred yards."

"I shouldn't go straight away," I said, "but along by the front; and if
we were stopped, Joeboy could tell the outpost we were ordered to change
position--to go on to the other end of the line. What would the outpost
care or think about it? All he would think would be that a wagon-load
of stores was being shifted, and let us pass. Then I should tell Joeboy
to begin creeping out towards the east yonder, and keep on till we were
out of bearing before striking away for the kopje here. Once we had got
clear off we could keep steadily on all through the night, and at
daybreak you would be watching for us, and send out a detachment to
bring us in."

"Splendid, my boy--in theory," said Denham; "but it would not work out
in practice."

"Think not?"

"A hundred to one it wouldn't," cried Denham firml