"Harris said we didn't need any," added Roberts.
"That wasn't the only falsehood he told you," said Oscar in disgust. "How do you suppose you are going to get that wheel out of there?"
"I don't know, I am sure, unless we pull it out with the oxen," drawled the colonel.
"There are not oxen enough in the country to pull it out, and neither was there a trek-tow ever made that would stand the strain," answered the boy, who was almost ready to boil over when he saw how indifferent the person most interested in the matter of extricating the wagon seemed to be. "Neither have you any oxen—at least I don't see any," he continued, looking all around the field.
"Why, didn't you bring any with you?" asked the colonel, raising himself on his elbow again.
He looked interested now, and there was something in the tone of his voice, and in the expression of his face, that provoked Oscar, who knew then, as well as though the colonel had explained it to him, that his offer of assistance had been taken in a very broad sense.
The colonel expected that Oscar would draw his wagon out on firm ground, and that he himself would have no trouble about it. He expected to pay, and to pay liberally, for the service, but he wanted nothing to do with the work.
While it was being done he would sit by in a camp-chair and smoke his pipe and look on, while Roberts held an umbrella over his head.
But Oscar did not intend to waste any of the committee's time in working for money. He had simply offered to assist the colonel, but he did not expect that all the responsibility would be shifted upon his own shoulders.
"My oxen are coming," replied Oscar, "but it will be an hour or more before they will get here. By that time the dew will be off the grass, and they must be turned loose to graze. Why didn't you bring your oxen up yesterday?"