“Um? Yes,” said Joeboy quietly. “Think Doppie talky, Boss Val take Joeboy and go in a dark night up to wagon. Stoop down and kick big black fool driver and big black fool vorloper. ‘Get up!’ he say. ‘Want sleep alway? Get up, big fool! Trek!’”
“What?” I cried excitedly.
“Um? Talk like Doppie, Boss Val talk. Big fool get up an’ inspan. Boss Val get up on box an’ keep call driver big black fool, like Doppie. Joeboy walk ’long o’ vorloper. Tell ’im Joeboy ’tick 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.”