CHAPTER II. AFRICAN TREACHERY.
The stable-yard was inclosed on one side by the hotel, on another by the barn, and on the two opposite sides by upper sheds, which were built very high and roomy in order to accommodate the Cape wagons that now and then sought refuge there during bad weather.
There was a wagon under one of the sheds now, and an enormous affair it was, too. It was so large that one of the ordinary lumber wagons we see on the streets every day would have looked like a hand-cart beside it. It belonged to our friend Oscar, and was filled to overflowing with supplies of all kinds.
The trek-tow, or chain, by which the oxen were to draw the unwieldy vehicle, was made fast to the tongue (the natives called it a "dissel-boom"), and lay at full length on the ground, the yokes being deposited at intervals beside it.
Oscar's driver and fore-loper had placed the chain and the yokes in these positions before going to the pound to bring up the cattle.
They had been gone half an hour, and their employer was expecting them back every moment.
Because Oscar's oxen were in the pound the reader must not suppose that they had been engaged in any mischief, for such was not the case.
The law of the colony required that they must be taken care of every night, when there were cultivated fields in the vicinity, and the price that was charged for putting them in the pound was much less than Oscar would have been obliged to pay if he had employed herdsmen enough to keep them within bounds; besides, they were safer there than they would have been anywhere else, for nobody could steal them.
When Oscar first took his stand in front of the window there was but one man in the stable-yard, and he was engaged in grooming a small iron-gray horse which he had hitched in front of the barn door.