"Aw! It's you, is it?" said he, after he had taken a good look at our hero.
The tone in which these words were uttered, and which was almost insulting, would have made some high-spirited boys angry; but Oscar evidently considered the source from which the words came, for he bowed in response and looked as good-natured as ever.
"Young man," continued the colonel, "you are a fool, and those who sent you out here are bigger fools."
Oscar did not feel at all hurt by this plain speech. He could hardly refrain from laughing outright.
He looked down at his sleek oxen, which were now being inspanned in the stable-yard (oxen are never "yoked" in Africa, they are always "inspanned"), and smiled complacently as he replied:
"That's only a matter of opinion, colonel."
"No, sir; it's a fact, and nobody's opinion can alter it," said the colonel, who seemed to grow angry again when he looked at Oscar's well-conditioned cattle and noted the energy and willingness with which his men went about their work. "It is perfectly ridiculous to send a boy like you out to this detestable country on such a wild-goose chase. You'll never succeed—you'll never get over the town hill, I couldn't."
"What was the matter?" asked Oscar, who knew very well what the answer would be. "Couldn't your oxen haul you over?"
"They might if they had got the chance, though I doubt it. They are a sorry lot compared with yours; and I don't for the life of me see——"
The colonel stopped there; but Oscar knew what he had in his mind.