"No, no!" said Oscar quickly. "That would never do. The way for you to beat him is to keep a close watch over the wagon. Don't allow a stranger to go near it."
"Bedad, I won't, then," said Paddy.
He went back to the shed, and Oscar closed the window, but stood looking through it, watching the motions of his faithful servitor.
The latter took the money out of his hat, jingled it in his closed hands, and finally put it carefully away in his pocket. Then he jumped up and executed a wild Irish war-dance, at the same time whirling his stick viciously in the air and uttering suppressed whoops.
"The only thing that man needs now to make him supremely happy is a head to crack," thought Oscar as he went back to his writing. "I don't think it would be quite safe for anybody to make another attempt to bribe him."
Having completed and mailed his letters, Oscar went about his unfinished business, feeling perfectly satisfied that the care of his outfit had been committed to trusty hands.
Two or three times during the afternoon and evening he heard from Colonel Dunhaven through Judge Donahue, who told him that the man who knew so much about travelling in Africa that he would not ask advice of anybody was having an exceedingly hard time of it.
His oxen, after breaking the trek-tow faster than the blacksmith could mend it, had at last turned "rusty" and run the wagon into an ant-bear's hole, in which it was so hopelessly "stalled" that it would take an extra span of oxen to draw it out.
"But even if he finds anybody who is accommodating enough to haul him out on hard ground, he will not be any better off than he is now," added the judge. "His whole rigging has been sawed into, and if the town hill does not prove to be an obstacle he cannot get over, the Drackenberg will."