Chapter III: Part 3

The sun was almost exactly where Ali had decided it should be when Ben Akbar raised his head and fixed his attention on the western horizon. It was the direction from which they had come, that from which pursuit should come. Ali turned to face the same way as Ben Akbar.

A few minutes later, they rode over a hillock and Ali saw them. They were a little group of the Pasha's crack troops, superbly mounted on magnificent _dalul_ and maintaining tight formation behind a tracker. Ali reached up to fondle Ben Akbar's neck but kept his eyes on the riders. They were seven, including the tracker, and Ali knew at once why there were no more than seven and no fewer.

He was no ordinary outlaw, but a direct affront to all that Moslems held most dear. He must be brought to justice, and no effort would be spared to do so. Thus the tracker was the best to be found. The six soldiers were picked men. Finally, the seven _dalul_ were the very elite of the almost thirty thousand camels with the _Hadj_. There were no more than seven pursuers because there was not another _dalul_ to keep pace with these seven.

Ali did not have to ask himself if the seven _dalul_ were fresh or weary; their riders would know how to conserve their mounts. Ben Akbar had had less than four hours' rest.

Standing quietly beside Ben Akbar, Ali told himself that he had wanted and planned to have the pursuit take form in just this way, and he would not change now if he could. He himself might have ridden much farther in the hours that had elapsed since leaving Al Misri's camp, but he'd have done it at the expense of Ben Akbar. The test had to come, and it was better to meet it in this fashion.

The soldiers sighted him and urged their mounts from an easy trot to a swift lope. Ali waited until they were within two hundred and fifty yards, well beyond effective range of smoothbore muskets, before he turned to Ben Akbar and said quietly, "Kneel."

Ben Akbar knelt and Ali mounted. At ease in the saddle, he turned to watch the soldiers sweep nearer. A momentary doubt assailed him as a close-up inspection of their _dalul_ revealed the full magnificence of such animals. Ali put the doubt behind him and told Ben Akbar to run.

At home in a camel saddle as he seldom fitted in elsewhere, Ali did not waste another backward glance as Ben Akbar flew on. He knew what lay behind him, and that he could expect no mercy whether his back or his face was toward the pursuers. Wherever it struck, the blade of a sword would be equally sharp and bite as deeply.

After fifteen minutes, and the blade not felt, Ali knew he'd chosen wisely when he gave his very life into Ben Akbar's keeping. He still did not look behind him. _Dalul_ such as the soldiers mounted were not easily outdistanced, but there was a mighty vein of comfort in that very thought. Ben Akbar would never again be pursued by swifter _dalul_ or more skilful riders. If he won this race, he'd win all to come.

An hour and a half afterwards, Ali finally looked around. With less than a two-hundred-yard lead at the beginning of the race, Ben Akbar had doubled that distance between himself and the three swiftest pursuers. The remaining four, in order of their speed, straggled behind the leaders. Ali slowed Ben Akbar so that his pace exceeded by the scantiest margin that of the three leaders.

When a cool wind announced the going of the day and the coming of the night, the nearest of the seven pursuers was a mere dot in the distance.

* * * * *

The bitter autumn wind that snarled in from the Mediterranean had sent a herd of tough, desert-bred goats to the shelter of some boulders and made them stand close together for the warmth one found in another. Riding past on Ben Akbar, Ali gave the shivering herd the barest of glances and turned his gaze to the horizon. He missed nothing, a highly practical talent whose development had been markedly accelerated by necessity.

Behind lay an incredible journey. Eluding the soldiers, Ali rode on into the very heart of the Arabian desert. Always he sought the lonelier places, shepherd's or camel herder's camps and the smallest villages. At first his experiences had conformed strictly to what any solitary traveler might expect. As the news spread and Ali's ill fame became part of the talk at even the most isolated campfires, his fortunes changed accordingly.

He seldom met anything except cold hatred and outright hostility. Normally it was accompanied by dread, not entirely a disadvantage since, whatever else they thought, trembling natives who recognized Ali feared to refuse him food and other necessities. He fought when he could not avoid fighting, but much preferred to run. Ben Akbar had shown his heels to more soldiers, tribesmen and just plain bandits than Ali could remember.

With an almost desperate yearning for anyone at all who'd exchange a friendly word, eventually Ali turned to his native Syria, where he hoped to find a friend. He found a hatred more bitterly intense than anything experienced elsewhere; every Syrian seemed to think that he must bear part of the shame for a countryman who had defiled the Holy City. Now Ali was farther north, in the land of the Turks and riding toward the port of Smyrna.

Rounding a bend that brought him in sight of the Mediterranean, Ali halted Ben Akbar and stared in amazement.

He was on the shoreside wall of a u-shaped rock ledge that extended into the sea and formed a natural harbor. Some distance out, a great sailing ship that flew a foreign flag rode at anchor. Though he could not read it and had no more than a vague notion that it might be read, Ali could make out her name. She was the _Supply_.

Halfway between shore and ship, a scow propelled by oarsmen and carrying a kneeling camel that seemed to be strapped in position, was making toward the _Supply_. On the shore beneath Ali, a number of other camels were tethered. One had lain down, and eight Egyptian camel handlers seemed interested in making it get up again.

With a fine contempt for Egyptians generally, and Egyptian camel handlers specifically, Ali had decided to his own satisfaction that these last fell back on forceful crudity simply because they were too stupid to master the right ways of handling camels. Ali's curiosity mounted because, contrary to their usual procedure, these handlers were gently trying to make the camel get up.

Then the scow reached the ship, the men who had been on the scow disappeared on the _Supply_ and took the camel with them, whereupon the Egyptian handlers abruptly changed tactics. Kicking together a pile of rubble, someone started a fire. A pail appeared from somewhere and was put over the fire. A raging Ali leaped from Ben Akbar and toward the group.

He had not intended to interfere. If the Egyptians were stupid enough to abuse their own camel, then let them be deprived of the beast that much sooner. Ali would not have interfered if the Egyptian handlers had done almost anything except what they were obviously about to do--make the camel get up by pouring boiling pitch over its tail. Hearing Ali, the eight turned as one and greeted him with hostile stares.

"Swine!" Ali snarled. "Offspring of diseased fleas! Eaters of camel dung!"

He emphasized his insults with a blow to the midriff that sent the nearest Egyptian spinning, and immediately the seven were upon him. Ali delivered a smart kick to the shin that left one hopping about on one foot and howling with pain, landed a clenched fist squarely on the jaw of another, and then a sledge hammer collided with his own head.

Night came suddenly. Then light shone through the dark curtain, and Ali looked up at two men who stood before him. One, a native interpreter, was foppish in garment and manner. The other, arrayed in clothing such as Ali had never seen, commanded instant respect. Tall, slim, strong and young, he had the same air of strength and authority that marked Al Misri. He spoke in a strange tongue to the interpreter, who addressed Ali.

"Lieutenant Porter demands to know why you attacked his men."

Ali gestured toward the kneeling camel. "They would have made it rise by pouring boiling pitch on its tail."

The interpreter conveyed this information to Lieutenant Porter, who whirled at once on the Egyptians.

"I've told all of you that I will tolerate no cruelty," he began.

Not understanding a word, nevertheless Ali listened with mingled awe and admiration as Lieutenant Porter continued to speak. His words, Ali thought happily, were a lion's roar, and it was better to be whipped than to endure them because a whip could not remove skin nearly as well. The eight Egyptians, like eight beaten dogs, slunk away. Lieutenant Porter addressed the interpreter, who conveyed the message to Ali.

"Can you make the camel rise?"

Ali got to his feet, smoothed his burnous and went to the stubborn camel. He took hold of the tether rope while he stooped to whisper in its ear, "Rise, my little one. Rise, my beauty. The trail is long and the day is short."

The camel rose and began to lick Ali's hand. Ali addressed the interpreter. "Where are these camels going?"

"To America," the interpreter assured him.

"But--" A bewildered Ali looked from the stately ship to the tethered camels. "Is a land wealthy enough to have such a ship, so poor as to have no camels?"

Treating this question with haughty disdain, the interpreter relayed another message. "Lieutenant Porter wishes to know if you will go to America with the camels?"

Ali hesitated, then asked, "Is America a land of Moslems?"

The interpreter conferred with Lieutenant Porter and turned to Ali. "There are no Moslems."

Ali indicated Ben Akbar, silhouetted on top of the ledge. "May my _dalul_ come, too?"

"He may," the interpreter assured him.

Ali said joyously, "Then we will go."

He didn't know where America was or what he might find on arrival, but he was sure that he and Ben Akbar, together, could make their own way anywhere at all.

7. Another Pilgrimage

Beginning at her stern and bearing to the starboard side, Ali set out to become more intimately acquainted with the ship. Almost every step brought to light a fresh marvel. As a camel driver who traveled with caravans, at one time or another he had been in every port that a caravan can visit, and he was not unfamiliar with ships. But never before had he seen anything to compare with the _Supply_.

A hundred and forty-one feet over all, the wooden three-master had a main and a quarterdeck. An official United States Navy ship, she was armed with a battery of four twenty-four pounders. One glance revealed that her crew of forty officers and men believed in and strictly adhered to the rules of first-class seamanship; the _Supply_ was as spotlessly clean as she was trim.

Had she been a conventional ship, Ali would have considered her impressive enough. As it was, he found her overwhelming.

Jefferson Davis, United States Secretary of War, was one of several outstanding Americans who'd long cherished the notion that camels might very well help solve some of the troublesome problems of transportation involved in settling America's vast, arid and little-known Southwest. Finally, granted official permission to subject this theory to a practical test, the _Supply_ had been rebuilt for the sole purpose of importing an experimental herd.

A well-built stable, sixty feet long, twelve feet wide and not quite seven feet six inches high, extended from just behind the foremast to just in front of the quarterdeck. On either side were twenty portholes that could be left open when weather permitted, but each porthole was equipped with a panel of glass that closed from the inside in cold weather and wooden shutters that swung from the outside and were to be used during violent storms or in heavy seas. Midway was a hatch that offered direct entry to the stable, and that could be lowered for loading or unloading and raised when the ship was at sea.

Front and rear, high enough above the main deck so that even the most turbulent waves would not wash over them, were other hatches fitted with wind sails--canvas funnels--that admitted air but excluded everything else. Thus, even when it was necessary to close the portholes, there was no danger that the camels would suffocate.

Every stall was fitted with a harness, so arranged that the stall's occupant might have complete freedom of movement when the _Supply_ was in smooth sailing, or be strapped firmly in a kneeling position and unable to move at all, when the ship was in stormy seas. Further to minimize injuries that might result from being tossed about, bags filled with hay were secured to every beam and anything else that a camel might bump. The stable floor was covered with clean, fresh litter. Reflector lamps would illuminate the stable if it should be necessary to attend the camels at night.

A supply of fresh water was contained in two huge tanks, each holding thirty thousand gallons, and a fire extinguisher was arranged so that it could draw on either tank or both. A sterile cabinet held an ample supply of every known remedy for any aliment that might afflict a camel. The hold of the _Supply_ was filled to the bursting point with a store of the finest and cleanest hay and grain. No necessity or luxury that a camel might need--or that somebody fancied a camel might need--had been omitted.

There were twenty camels already in the stable and they were making themselves at home there. Twenty-four, including Ben Akbar, remained to be brought on board.

Thirty-seven of the herd were young females, many of which were with young. Every one of the forty-three beasts that the American buyers had selected was an outstanding creature, all in their prime and none with any blemishes or deformities. But even though he must concede that the Americans knew how to choose camels, Ali was both baffled and dazzled by their sending of the _Supply_, obviously representing a tremendous investment, to carry a mere forty-four of even the finest camels all the way to America. Few of the desert-roving camel breeders of Ali's acquaintance would consider it worth their while to drive so small a herd to market, not even if the market was only four miles away.

Rounding the front of the stable and continuing sternward on the opposite side of the _Supply_, Ali felt a tense ripple travel up his spine and reassured himself that his dagger was at hand when he saw another camel handler approaching. Eight natives in all, seven besides Ali, had been retained to accompany this herd to America and Ali hadn't the faintest doubt that each one knew all the details of his story. But far from any hostile gesture or incident, nobody had even mentioned Mecca, to say nothing of the punishment sure to attend any who shed blood in the Holy City. There was a variety of possible explanations for such forbearance. Maybe the seven were lukewarm Moslems, who simply didn't care; perhaps, like Ali, they had personal reasons for wanting to go to some land where Moslems were few; possibly they intended to take action but were waiting for the right moment.

When he was near enough to his fellow camel handler, Mimico Teodara, Ali said decorously, "I greet thee."

"And I thee," the other replied.

Ali relaxed. If Mimico knew his story--and beyond doubt he did know--and if he were a strict Moslem, he would not have spoken to Ali at all. For a moment they remained side by side and both glanced toward the tethered camels that remained on shore. Ali, who somehow felt that Mimico might become his friend, spoke of the riddle that had been puzzling him.

"It is strange, almost past understanding, that Americans would send such a ship, at vast expense, to carry only forty-four camels to America."

"Strange indeed," his companion agreed. "Even more to be wondered at is the fact that, the first time they came, they returned with only thirty-three camels."

Surprised, Ali asked, "They have been here before?"

Mimico nodded. "This is their second voyage."

"Come," the foppish interpreter said, "this is not a time for idling."

Ali and Mimico walked silently to the lowered hatch through which the camels were brought on board and took their places in the boat that was moored against it. The device employed to bring camels from shore to ship, Ali felt, was another startling example of American ingenuity. Twenty feet long by seven wide, the boat used as a ferry was fitted with a hinged door at each end. A wheeled truck, sturdy enough to support the biggest camel, could be pushed through either door and secured in such a manner that it neither moved nor unbalanced the ferry.

Of very shallow draft, the oarsmen had no difficulty in running the ferry up on any beach. Then the hinged door was lowered and the truck run out. A camel was led onto the truck, made to kneel and strapped in place. The truck was pushed back onto the ferry, the door was raised, and the launching accomplished. Reaching the _Supply_, the door on the opposite end was lowered and the ferry brought squarely against the lowered hatch. Then it was necessary only to push the truck and its helpless passenger onto the deck of the _Supply_ and into the stable.

Ali, who thought he knew all the methods of moving camels, had to admit that he'd never even heard of this one.

Mimico, who had a fine touch with camels, brought the next passenger. It was a great Bactrian, or two-humped male. As it was led onto the truck, made to kneel and strapped in place, Ali wondered. Bactrians were enormous beasts, some weighing a ton or more, and this was an especially fine specimen. There was no doubting the strength of a two-humped camel, but caravan trails were usually long ones. Often, what with delivering one cargo at one point, picking up another for a different destination, and there getting still another, a year or more might elapse before a train of camels finally returned to the home from which they had set out. Such wandering was certain to be attended by conditions that varied from lush browse and ample water to scant forage and near drought. A camel's hump changed accordingly, so that often nothing except the very skilful application of pads made it possible to keep a firm saddle on a beast with only one hump. Naturally, a beast with two humps could be twice the trouble. In addition, Ali thought, Bactrians were less hardy.

Under the skilful direction of Ali and Mimico, all the camels except Ben Akbar were finally loaded. On the final trip, Mimico leaped out as soon as the ferry was beached and went to bring Ali's _dalul_.

Ali waited, saying nothing. The more they were together, the better he liked Mimico, who handled camels with consummate skill and never used words when deeds were in order. Ali waited now to find if his judgment was sound. If Mimico passed what Ben Akbar considered a respectful distance, the _dalul_ would show his resentment. If Mimico was the camel man he seemed to be, he would recognize Ben Akbar for what he was and halt before he was dangerously near.

Before Ben Akbar lunged, Mimico halted, turned and beckoned. Ali strode forward to lead his _dalul_ to the ferry.

* * * * *

All sails spread to a stiff and favorable wind, the _Supply_ skimmed along at a fast eight knots an hour. Leaning against an outside wall of the camel stable, beside the porthole near which Ben Akbar was tethered, and through which he was thrusting his nose, Ali kept anxious eyes on the horizon where land should appear.

Since that day when the _Supply_ had sliced into the Mediterranean and the haze-shrouded coast of Turkey had slipped always farther behind and then disappeared, almost three full months had come and gone. By no means had they passed swiftly.

One furious storm followed another while the _Supply_ pursued her course in the Mediterranean. Much of the time it had been necessary to strap the camels in place, to keep them from being tumbled about as the ship listed one way or another. It had been impossible to prevent all injury, but only three of the forty-four camels had died.

Two of them were Bactrians, the only two-humped camels in the present cargo. This gave additional support for Ali's theory that they were less hardy than their Arabian cousins. He did not draw any positive conclusions because Lieutenant Porter disagreed with him, saying that species had nothing to do with it and the two Bactrians merely happened to be less hardy individuals. Ali offered no argument because of an ever increasing respect for Lieutenant Porter's knowledge and wisdom.

In part, Ali was influenced by the fact that Porter was the only man on board besides Ali himself who had succeeded in winning Ben Akbar's friendship. But more than that was involved.

As the _Supply_ lay at anchor off the Turkish coast, it was evident that Lieutenant Porter was not an authority on camels. But in sharp contrast with some men Ali had known, the American had proven himself both willing and eager to learn, and he included the eight native camel drivers among his teachers. But from the first, to Ali's vast astonishment and then to his boundless delight, Porter did not find it necessary to base his behavior upon that pursued by haughty sheiks and amirs who conversed with camel drivers.

Nobody on the _Supply_ ever forgot that Lieutenant Porter was in command, but nobody ever had reason to feel that the officer considered them inferior. Ali nursed a happy conviction that America must be a wonderful land indeed if many Americans were like the skipper of the _Supply_.

A little distance from Ali, Mimico was also leaning against the camel stable and waiting for the first sight of land. The pair had become friends during the voyage, but, after so many days at sea, neither Ali nor Mimico wanted to do anything except look at some land.

Presently Ali saw it, the sea rolling up on a flat and treeless shore and the waves falling back. Then it disappeared, a tantalizing vision that first enticed and then crushed. But it came again and did not disappear. Ali's eager eyes drank in as much as possible of this first look at America.

The shore was flat and treeless, but not by any means was it deserted. A great crowd of people, everything from officials come to receive the camels to the curious who wanted only to look, awaited. There was a wooden pier and a group of buildings that comprised the town of Indianola, Texas.

A lighter that had been lingering at the pier was now making toward them. The ship met the _Supply_ and drew alongside. A camel was brought from its stall and a harness was strapped about and beneath it. A cable dangling from the lighter's boom was attached to the harness and the kicking, frightened camel was transferred from the _Supply_ to the lighter.

Lieutenant Porter gestured to Ali and Mimico, ordering, "Go aboard the lighter and help out."

The pair entered a small boat that took them to the lighter, where they received all the camels as they came. With gentle touch and soothing voices, they calmed the frightened animals and averted what might have become a catastrophe.

Busy with the camels, Ali had time for only the briefest of shoreward glances. His first close-up impression of America was a restricted one--a small section of the pier which they were approaching. Standing on it were two horses, hitched to a light wagon. A red-faced, red-haired man who had come to see the unloading occupied the wagon seat and held the horses' reins.

There was no time for a prolonged scrutiny; the camels must be put ashore as soon as possible. Mimico climbed from the lighter to the pier and made ready to receive them. Ali strapped the harness about the first camel to be unloaded. The boom lifted it.

Then the horses screamed, the red-faced man roared, and a full scale upheaval was in progress!

8. Trouble

As soon as the horses began to scream and the man to shout, the camels quieted. It was what they should do, and Ali would have been astonished if they hadn't. Taken from familiar stalls and immediately thereafter swung on the boom, they had been roused to the verge of stampede. But they had not been hurt and saw no indication that they might be hurt when the new danger threatened.

The camels had not detected this fresh peril and were not directly aware of it, but the screams of the horses and shouts of the driver were evidence enough that it existed. The camels responded as though they were part of a caravan under attack. Whatever peril lurked, it might pass them by if they stood quietly.

The herd again tractable, Ali put a companionable hand on Ben Akbar's shoulder and turned toward the pier. His eyes widened in astonishment.

Mimico had received and was holding the tether rope of the single beast that had been transferred to the pier. It was one of the young females, and, like all the rest of the herd, it was standing very quietly. But on the pier and within a wide radius, Mimico and the young camel seemed to be the only living creatures that were quiet.

The terrified horses, bereft of all reason, had wrenched control from their driver. Whirling crazily, they had missed dashing off the pier and into the water by no more than a wagon wheel's width. Now, with the red-haired driver still trying with all his strength to stop them, they were running away at top speed. As Ali watched, a wheel struck a boulder and the wagon bounded high in the air.

To one side, a black-bearded man had been indolently sitting on a gaunt dun mule, with one foot in a stirrup and the other cocked up on the saddle, while his chin rested on the upraised knee. Suddenly and obviously to the man's complete surprise--the mule began an insane bucking. The startled rider dropped his upraised foot, groped for and couldn't find the stirrup, and missed the dangling reins when he snatched at them. He leaned forward to wrap both arms about the mule's neck and clung desperately.

Two saddled horses whose riders were among the crowd reared and danced in a mad effort to break their tethers. A horse that had not been picketed whirled and, tail high over its rump, galloped away. Everybody on shore except Mimico seemed to be shouting or screaming, or shouting and screaming.

A small boat moved up beside the lighter and more men came aboard. Four were native camel handlers but the fifth was a quiet young American named, Ali remembered, Gwynne Heap. With a taste for adventure and a knowledge of Eastern languages and customs derived from previous residence in the East, Heap had contributed at least as much as anyone else to the successful purchase and importation of the camel herd. Now he took competent command.

"You have no trouble?" he asked quietly.

"No trouble," Ali told him.

Gwynne Heap called to Lieutenant Porter, who had remained in the small boat, "Everything's under control."

"Keep them coming," Lieutenant Porter called back. "They must be unloaded."

Lieutenant Porter and the men who remained with him joined Mimico and made ready to help receive the camels. Ali began to harness the next animal scheduled for unloading.

He became absorbed in what he was doing, adjusting each strap and fastening each buckle with a fussy attention to detail that was both unnecessary and so time-consuming that it drew reprimanding glances from Gwynne Heap. Ali refused either to hurry or to look toward the shore, but refusing to turn his eyes toward it in no way obliterated the ugly thing that awaited there. The resentful crowd was still in an uproar. Ali thought sadly of the joyous welcome his imagination had created for these camels, so vital to his own country, when they finally reached America.

The harnessed camel was finally swung away on the boom, and, still refusing to glance shoreward, Ali began to help prepare the next in line. He tried to console himself with the thought that Lieutenant Porter was still in command and nobody would dare challenge him, but in his heart he knew that it was not so. If camels were not wanted in America, they could not be here. Nobody could force their acceptance.

Then, as always when facing a problem that seemed to have no solution, Ali stopped thinking about it. He knew from experience that it was not wise to borrow trouble. The rising sun shone on not just one but many different paths that led in many different directions. One could always find the right way if he was properly diligent in the search.

One by one, the camels were landed until only Ben Akbar was left. Ali finally glanced shoreward, to discover that Lieutenant Porter and his men had rigged a picket line, a long rope stretched across the pier, and they were tethering the camels to it as they were lowered and unharnessed. Ali saw also that the herd was again becoming restless, but this time there was no cause for concern.

The crowd was still in an uproar and such horses as had not already broken away were trying their best to do so. The camels had definitely decided that whatever might be bothering everything else would not disturb them. However, after many weeks at sea, at last they were once again on firm footing. That was very exciting.

His companions stood back while Ali alone harnessed Ben Akbar, then took hold of the boom and rode with him as the great _dalul_ was transferred from the lighter to the pier. He saw, even as he descended, that the tethered camels were fast becoming unmanageable. They both smelled and saw the earth that lay just beyond the pier and they were frantic to feel it. For all his skill, not even Mimico would be able to maintain control much longer.

The spectators--those with horses had wisely left them behind--had come nearer and were arranged in a rough U at the end of the pier and on either side. Lieutenant Porter, who looked more worried than he had during the stormiest part of the voyage, paced nervously back and forth. Again and again he searched the crowd, as though expecting to find someone who should be present but was not.

Keeping a firm grip on Ben Akbar's lead rope, because he knew that big _dalul_ was as anxious as any of the rest to feel earth under his feet, Ali turned to study the crowd, too. Except for a group distinguished by their uniforms, and further marked as soldiers by their arms and precise formation, he learned nothing except that Americans wear outlandish clothes.

Gwynne Heap came onto the pier and Porter asked anxiously, "Will you see if you can find Wayne? He should have met us."

"Right," the other assented.

Gwynne Heap walked to the end of the pier and mingled with the crowd. A second after he disappeared, Ben Akbar shivered convulsively and Ali knew what to expect.

"I know you long to feel the earth, for I have a similar yearning," he said. "But wait until the time is here and the word is spoken. Do not break and run as a half-trained baggage camel might. Do not shame me, my brother."

Ben Akbar quieted, but the rest of the camels would not be soothed. They surged forward, and there was no way to know which one broke the picket line because all were lunging. Tether ropes slipped off either end of the broken line as the herd ran forward.

Maintaining a firm grip on Ben Akbar's tether rope and keeping pace with the _dalul_, Ali ran with them. He was not worried. This was no reasonless stampede that might be expected to overrun whatever lay in its path because fear-crazed camels would take no reckoning of obstacles. These camels were running for the same reason that a young horse runs when, after a winter spent in a confining stall, it is finally freed in a green pasture. The people on the pier were in no danger.

The spectators, however, thought otherwise. Most of them were thoroughly familiar with horses and mules, but camels were as alien as dinosaurs. Obviously, these berserk beasts were bent on destruction.

A man shouted in fear and the contagion spread. Those directly in the path of the running herd surged away, crowding those on either side and compounding the confusion. Some idiot, fortunately he was too excited to take proper aim, drew and fired a revolver. Then Ali's eyes widened in horror.

Through the gap left open when the crowd parted, the soldiers came on the run. Their arms were ready. Their obvious intention was to avert catastrophe by shooting the camels before they overran the crowd. Ali heard Lieutenant Porter's outraged bellow.

"No! No, you fools!"

If they heard the command, the soldiers ignored it. Dispersing smartly, those in front knelt and those behind were preparing to shoot over their heads when a newcomer appeared.

Riding a sleek black horse which he handled so skillfully that somehow it seemed an extension of himself, he came through the same gap the soldiers had used. Unmistakably a professional soldier, his present actions proclaimed that he was accustomed to emergencies. He wheeled his horse in front of the troops and snapped an order.

Though they had ignored Lieutenant Porter, either because they hadn't heard him or because Porter wore the Navy uniform, the soldiers gave this officer instant obedience. Falling back to either side, they formed a lane that let the running camels through but kept the spectators out.

Seconds after the run started, Ali and Ben Akbar left the pier and stood on the soil of America.

Back on the pier, Lieutenant Porter heaved a mighty sigh of relief. He gave formal command of the camel herd over to Major Henry Wayne, of the United States Army. Arriving in the nick of time, Wayne's prompt and vigorous action averted the massacre of these animals and insured establishment of the most colorful and most unique method of transportation ever attempted in the United States--the Camel Corps.

* * * * *

At the very rear of the caravan, where he had been posted by Major Wayne so that he might keep a watchful eye on all the other camels, a puzzled and apprehensive Ali sat lightly in Ben Akbar's saddle. Watching the caravan, only forty-one animals in all, imposed no strain. From Yusuf, the belled leader who swung along as placidly as though the seven hundred and fifty pounds he bore on his pack saddle had no weight at all, to Iba, the little female who walked just ahead of Ben Akbar and had been relieved of all pack-carrying because of anticipated motherhood, none had any rebellious ideas or any inclination to do anything except walk along until they came to their destination.

Ali saw them as one learns to see the very familiar. With no need for the fussy solicitude and anxious fretting that marked the soldiers assigned to duty with the camels, he would instantly discern any departure from the normal and immediately thereafter he would be making the proper countermove. Not required even to think about the camels, Ali's thoughts were occupied by more troublesome matters.

In this America, to which camels had been brought with so much trouble and at such vast expense, they had been granted a hostile reception and, with very few exceptions, there had been nothing but hostility since. Even those who came only to stare--and throngs of the curious appeared wherever the camels were taken--did not like what they saw.

It was true that camels just naturally frightened horses and mules, and thus were responsible for an unrehearsed but extremely lively rodeo wherever they made an unexpected appearance. In an attempt to avoid such incidents, a rider preceded the caravan and warned all that camels were en route. But the rider never succeeded in warning everyone, and some of those he did advise insisted on staying around with their horses or mules, to see for themselves whether he spoke the truth.

Ali managed a flitting grin as he thought of an incident that had followed the unloading. The excited camels, savoring their first happy taste of land after such a long time at sea, were permitted to race about and frolic as they pleased until they tired themselves out and could again be herded. Then they were taken to a corral built especially for them.

The corral was large enough, and as an enclosure for horses or mules it would have been satisfactory enough. In this land, however, conventional building materials were both scarce and expensive. Since prickly-pear cactus was abundant, the builders had used it to construct their fence. Far from being repelled by such a thorny barrier, the camels happily ate it!

Regardless of other considerations, the very fact that they could eat such fodder was another indication that they were well adapted to this American Southwest. Ali already knew that, although he might encounter problems different from any previously experienced, there'd be none incapable of solution. Nor was there anything horses and mules could do that camels couldn't do better. A good pack camel was capable of bearing five or six times as much as the best pack horse or mule, and, day for day, he'd carry it farther. He would keep on going, at the same steady pace, past dry water holes or across drought-shriveled areas where lack of water would drive a horse or mule to madness. Although it was often necessary to carry hay and grain for other beasts of burden, a camel would always live off the country.

These camels would do all anyone expected from them and then surpass expectations, but Ali sighed dolefully as he thought of what had been and what was. Even Major Wayne had been unable to counteract a spontaneous public rejection of these beasts from a far land. Accosted by skeptics who doubted a camel's ability to pack anything at all, Wayne had bales of hay packed on a kneeling camel. The enormous load totaled more than twelve hundred pounds, but, with no hesitation and no visible strain, the camel rose and walked away with the load when ordered to do so.

Compared with the pack animals they knew, it was an incredible feat. But, although they themselves were eyewitnesses, the onlookers seemed to regard what they had seen as the trick of some circus master. Seeing, they neither accepted nor approved.

The real trouble, Ali thought sadly, was nothing that had yet appeared or would appear on the surface. Although this country was markedly similar to his own native land, there were fundamental differences that had nothing to do with topography. They lay in the hearts and traditions of people who, for past generations, had looked to the horse, the mule and the ox for help in building up their land.

With very few exceptions, even the soldiers assigned to the Camel Corps resented their new duties. For the most part, they were former mule skinners who had been chosen because of their outstanding ability to handle mules. Almost to a man, they yearned to be rid of camels and back with their mules. Only Major Wayne and a very few others had complete confidence in the proposed Camel Corps. Fortunately, some of these were so influential that they must be heard.

Presently, Ali caught his first glimpse of Camp Verde, the military post where the camels were to be held until a major expedition was organized. His heart grew lighter and his troubles less.

Obviously, Camp Verde had been planned by someone who knew camels. Glancing briefly at a cluster of adobe buildings, Ali centered intent scrutiny on the khan, or camel corral. Constructed of stone, wood and timber, it was patterned after the time-tested khans of Ali's native country. Rectangular, the north wall angled outward. The gate was in this wall and a house for the chief camel handler stood beside the gate. Spacious enough for five times as many camels, the corral differed in a notable respect from most khans Ali had seen. It was sparkling clean.

A few camels, some with pack and some with riding saddles, stood here and there about the camp and more were visible in the khan. Evidently this was the herd Mimico had mentioned, the thirty-three previously imported. The new arrivals were halted, stripped of their burdens and herded into the khan.

With an affectionate parting slap for Ben Akbar, Ali turned to face a strange camel handler. Arrived with the first camels and presently serving as interpreter, he already had Mimico and the six other handlers in tow.

"You are to come with me," he announced.

He escorted the newcomers to a building and lined them up before a desk, behind which sat a bored-looking clerk. The clerk inscribed each man's name in his records while the interpreter told each about the wages he would receive. Ali, last in line, presently faced the clerk.

"You are to be paid twenty dollars a month and receive full rations," the interpreter said.

Without looking up, the clerk asked, "Name?"

"Hadji Ali," Ali answered.

"What?" the clerk asked.

"Hadji Ali," Ali repeated.

The clerk wrote with his goose quill, and, still without looking up, he flipped the book around for Ali's inspection. Unable to read or write, but with no intention of admitting that while the interpreter might overhear, Ali scanned his written name.

"Right?" the clerk asked.

Ali nodded approval. Thus did Hadji Ali cease to be. From that moment, not only as long as he lived but as history would record him after his death, Ali would be known by the name the clerk had written.

It was _Hi Jolly_.

9. Lieutenant Beale

Except for the camels, that never seemed to be affected by any weather, everything at Camp Verde had sought the nearest shade. It was hot, Ali admitted to himself. The Syrian sun at its fiercest was not more savage than this blazing sun of Texas. But it was not unendurable.

Since for the present there was no reason to endure it, Ali and Mimico sat cross-legged in the shade of the camel khan. Wan and weak, Mimico was still recovering from some devastating malady that had almost cost his life. For an interval neither spoke. Then Mimico broke the silence.

"I came to this thrice-accursed camp while winter was still with us," he growled. "I have been here since, doing the work of a stable boy and as a stable boy regarded. All this I endured without complaint--"

Ali smothered a quick grin. Throughout a very monotonous period of doing nothing worthwhile, as they waited for somebody to decide what should be done, no voice had declared more loudly or more frequently than Mimico's that camels and camel men belonged out on the trails. They should not be restricted to a rest home for obsolete Pashas--Mimico's personal title for Camp Verde--who could do nothing except talk because they had grown too old or too fat to ride.

Mimico saw the grin and lapsed into a sulky silence. Then he resumed, amending his narrative to conform with truth.

"All this I endured with little complaint, for I knew that it was a passing thing. Sooner or later, there would be work for men, and men would be needed. Now that the opportunity is here--"

Mimico's voice trailed off into silence, and he gazed moodily at the sun-shriveled horizon. Ali's heart went out to his friend.

Camp Verde had indeed proved dull. Ali would have taken Ben Akbar and gone elsewhere weeks ago, except that he, too, foresaw a need for both camels and camel men. Now that time was not only at hand, but it promised to be the most exciting caravan of Ali's life.

A full-scale expedition was to be commanded by a Lieutenant Beale, an officer Ali had not met. The object was to survey a wagon road. According to rumor, a great deal of the proposed route lay through wilderness, of which none was well-known and much was unknown. There was more than a fair chance of encountering Indians, America's own savage tribesmen!

Most important and most exciting, the expedition was to provide a major test for the camels. Twenty-five were to go along, with Ali as a sort of overseer-teacher. Besides handling the camels, he was to instruct others in their proper handling.

Ali could well understand his friend's disappointment. Mimico, who otherwise would have accompanied the expedition, had been declared physically unfit by the post surgeon and ordered to remain at Camp Verde.

Ali offered such comfort as he could. "It is the will of Allah."

"Save your pious lectures for fledglings who may be impressed!" Mimico snapped. "If the will of Allah were truly what men proclaim it to be, you would have been shriveled by His wrath on a certain night when you left Mecca in a very great hurry."

Ali said nothing. Gray November skies had prevailed when he joined the company on the _Supply_ and had his first meeting with Mimico. This was June in a new land, and never once had Mimico even intimated that he knew of the incident in Mecca. Mentioning it now was a breach of etiquette, but Ali did not forget that Mimico was both sick and heartbroken.

After a moment, "Forgive me, my friend!" Mimico implored. "I shall not make my own hurt less painful by inflicting hurt upon you!"

Ali said, "It is forgotten."

"I care not what you or anyone else did in Mecca," Mimico went on. "None of us may truly know what lies beyond this mortal life until we have taken leave of it and may find out for ourselves. Getting back to earthly matters, which are the only ones I admit to understanding, I hear the journey will be long."

"I have heard the same," Ali declared. "But the longer it is, the better. I do not like this place."

Mimico said fervently, "Nor do I! Aside from being wearisome, it has been most absurd. I wonder at the Amirs who have made it so."

Ali told himself that that was also true. Major Wayne, in command at Camp Verde, was a thoroughly competent officer who maintained a smoothly running organization when left alone. But various officers who ranked Wayne, of whom few had any real knowledge of camels but all cherished pet theories, had visited from time to time and insisted on trying their ideas.

One had convinced himself--and submitted an official report that he hoped would convince others--that camels were greatly inferior to horses. He arrived at such a conclusion by arranging a race, a quarter-mile sprint, between a racehorse and a riding camel. The horse finished before the camel was fairly started, it is true, but the officer in question refused to recognize the sound fact that quarter-mile sprints would not be especially valuable to the proposed Camel Corps. Nor could he be convinced that, although a good horse may outdistance a camel in the first half day of travel, the camel will overtake and pass the horse before night. Furthermore, the camel will be fresh for the next day's start and will be going on long after the horse is worn out.

Another officer had proved conclusively that, due to peculiarities of the terrain, camels would be worse than useless in the Southwest because they quickly became sore-footed. This officer derived such an opinion by requisitioning six camels that hadn't been outside the khan for six weeks, having them packed and sending them off on a fifty-mile trip. The camels went lame solely because they had had no trail work to harden their feet.

In a similar fashion, it had been demonstrated that the gait of a riding camel is so stiff and jarring that Americans couldn't possibly get used to it; that camels are subject to a bewildering variety of ailments; that they are too vicious to be practical, and that there were a few dozen other reasons why the whole project couldn't possibly work and the camels had better be disposed of right now! Throughout, those who had originally had faith in a camel corps persisted in battling all skeptics and going ahead.

At long last, this proper expedition was organized and a true test was at hand. What happened afterward, Ali told himself, depended in great measure on Lieutenant Beale. If he was one of those officers whose every thought is already written in the Manual of Regulations--Ali had seen for himself that the American Army has a full quota of such--his report might very well doom future expeditions. If Beale was able to think for himself, if he was capable of honest analysis and could adapt to new situations, it was wholly possible that his favorable report would remove all obstacles and be the making of the Camel Corps.

Mimico asked wistfully, "What think you of the savage tribesmen, whose country you are to enter?"

"I have never met them," Ali answered seriously. "But I have met and fought the Druse, and I know well the bandits of the caravan routes. It is difficult to suppose that these savages are more fierce."

"Difficult indeed," Mimico said. "I am most envious, Ali."

Ali said, "There will be a chance for you."

"There is already a chance for you," Mimico pointed out, "and it is better to have one honey cake in the hand than to yearn for twenty and have none. It is said that you will enter desert country."

"I am no stranger to the desert," Ali said.

Mimico asked, "Have you no fears at all?"

"Only fools go without fear," said Ali. "To fear the unknown is to be prepared for it."

"Some have so much fear that they refuse even to be prepared," Mimico grunted. He named various other camel drivers who found the existence of Camp Verde ideal, since they had the finest of care and nothing to do. Asked to accompany the expedition and honestly informed of its nature and probable dangers, they had promptly terminated their employment and requested passage back to their native land.

When Mimico finished his appraisal of this worthless lot, Ali said simply, "They are Egyptians."

"They are cowards," Mimico amended. "I have known many old women with more courage. When does the leader of this expedition arrive, Ali?"

"I do not know the day, but it will be soon. I have been asked to be present at all times, for this man is expected to tarry only long enough to choose his camels."

Mimico said, "I wish you luck, Ali."

"And may fortune attend you," Ali responded.

Halfway across the camel khan, Ali stood grimly unmoving and silently awaited that which Allah had ordained. At any rate, none but Allah could now direct the tide of destiny, for Ali himself had tried.

A former Navy officer whose title derived from that service, and not now attached to the military, Lieutenant Beale had arrived late yesterday afternoon. Ali knew that because he had remained at a respectful distance and witnessed the arrival. It was what he had expected; camel drivers do not participate in formal welcomes for caravan masters.

Beale was accompanied by two companions, men so young that they were hardly more than boys, and all were greeted by and escorted to the house of Major Wayne. Ali drew his rations and retired to his own house, a lean-to behind the camel khan. Two hours ago, while the light of a new day was only a dim promise in the sky, he had been routed out and told to make ready.

Shortly thereafter, he met Lieutenant Beale. Again skipping formality, which did not bother Ali, the introduction consisted of a good look at his future chief. Ali liked what he saw.

Edward Beale looked older than his mid-thirties, but it was a look that experience alone had imparted. A trained surveyor and veteran of numerous excursions into the wilderness, Kit Carson was one of his many friends. Beale's knowledge of dangerous situations resulted from facing danger and finding his own way out. One of the original few who had conceived the idea of a Camel Corps and then worked tirelessly for it, Beale was a demanding taskmaster, with a touch of the martinet. However, Ali had seen enough men to know Beale as very much of a man.