Part 7

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.

The sun was just rising as Ali followed Major Wayne's party to the khan, so Lieutenant Beale might select the animals he wanted. He rose considerably in Ali's opinion when his first choice was Old Mohamet, the wisest and best baggage camel in the herd. Beale followed with Gusuf and, without a single error selected twenty-four of the best animals in the herd. Finally, he fixed his eyes on Ben Akbar.

"That's as fine a _dalul_ as I've seen," he remarked. "We'll take him."

Ali nodded, not even slightly surprised. Could anyone who chose camels with such a discerning eye fail to choose Ben Akbar? The expedition certainly had the right commander.

Lieutenant Beale looked from Ben Akbar to Sied, an all-white animal previously chosen and, next to Ben Akbar, the best _dalul_ in the herd. A soldier came to advise Major Wayne that he was wanted elsewhere and the commanding officer of Camp Verde left. Lieutenant Beale, his young companions and Ali were left alone in the khan.

After studying Sied thoroughly, a time-consuming process if correctly done, Lieutenant Beale turned to subject Ben Akbar to the same intense scrutiny. Ali discarded all doubts he might still have concerning Beale. Anyone could look at a camel, but few had the knack of looking, seeing and understanding.

Ali had known cameleers of great experience who would never bother with such preliminaries. Faced with two apparently equal _dalul_, they would accept either, after assuring themselves that both were good. But the best of the camel men never chose lightly. Among them, an elite few were entirely willing to spend as much time as necessary to study every beast in a herd, so that they might finally select the one best fitted to their requirements.

Finally, Beale gestured toward Ben Akbar and turned to his companions. "That red Nomanieh dromedary is superb," he said. "I want a closer look."

He started toward Ben Akbar, who was standing quietly near the far wall of the khan. Ali, who had understood none of the conversation but who knew all too clearly what Beale's gesture indicated, felt his heart catch in his throat.

He whirled toward the gate, and eyes already worried became desperate when there was no evidence of Major Wayne. Ali turned back to Lieutenant Beale, already a third of the way across the khan, and he shivered in terrible indecision. A camel driver did not presume to give orders to his leader!

The two young men seemed to have forgotten Ali and kept fascinated eyes on Lieutenant Beale. Ali ran forward. A camel driver did not command his chief, but neither did he let him go to certain injury and possible death.

Running up behind the officer, Ali grasped his arm. Lieutenant Beale stopped and swung about, but his eyes were questioning rather than angry, and he arched interrogatory brows.

"Well, boy?" he asked.

Ali remained speechless. Though he could have voiced a warning in Syrian or any of a dozen Arabic dialects, he did not know how to speak in a tongue Beale might understand. Presently, and happily, he found the perfect solution in one of the bits of English he had mastered but sadly misinterpreted.

The fists of a constantly brawling soldier had hammered out an unbroken string of victories. As a result, his companions trod with appropriate wariness and offered proper respect. Obviously, therefore, the name bestowed on their pugnacious brother-in-arms indicated that which was better left alone. Ali gestured toward Ben Akbar.

"Sad Sam," he pronounced.

"What?" Lieutenant Beale's quizzical frown became an engaging grin.

"Sad Sam," Ali repeated.

Lieutenant Beale turned to glance at Ben Akbar. "Sad Sam, eh? He does look a bit melancholy at that. I'll see if I can make him smile."

Pulling away from Ali, he resumed walking toward Ben Akbar. Ali waited in his tracks, unable to think of anything else he might do. Lieutenant Beale passed Ben Akbar's point of no return, and only Allah could help now.

Then, even as Ali drew each quick breath with a dreadful certainty that it must mark Ben Akbar's quick lunge, the _dalul_ stepped forward. He thrust his head over Lieutenant Beale's shoulder and waited in shivering ecstasy for his neck to be scratched.

Ali caught his breath and the look in his eyes was one of profound respect. This man was indeed to command. There would be no failure.

Major Wayne shouted suddenly, "Ned! Watch yourself!"

Still scratching Ben Akbar's neck, Lieutenant Beale glanced toward the returning Major. "What's up?"

"That's a killer dromedary. Didn't anybody warn you?"

"Somebody tried but I guess I didn't understand." The look Lieutenant Beale gave Ali meant that one man recognized another. "I won't be so stupid again," Lieutenant Beale promised.

10. The Expedition

Ali awakened in the dim light of very early morning. For a startled moment, he reverted to old habit and lay perfectly still, for he was not at once sure as to what lay about him. Then came comprehension.

The many nights he had slept in his lean-to shelter behind the camel khan marked the longest uninterrupted period of his life ever spent in any one house. He had become accustomed to it and was momentarily bewildered to awake in unfamiliar surroundings. Then the days at Camp Verde seemed to fade away and it was as though he had never slept anywhere except on bare earth, with the sky his only roof. The fact that he was wrapped in a blanket rather than his burnous was the only difference between this and the life he had always led.

Ali preferred the burnous, but his was becoming tattered and a new burnous seemed to be almost the only article one could not hope to find in the rich markets of vast America. Putting the garment away against some vague future when nothing else would serve, Ali had taken the first step toward becoming an American by accepting American clothes.

He raised on one elbow and looked toward the corral. All was peaceful there, so he settled back down. His plan had worked.

The camels had not had enough trail work to toughen their feet, and the journey from Camp Verde to the expedition's base camp near San Antonio had necessarily been a slow one. Arriving with some sore-footed camels, in spite of a leisurely pace, the horses and mules that were also to be part of the expedition promptly took the usual violent exception to these trespassers from a far land.

In any other circumstances, Ali could have corrected all trouble simply by going on with his camels. In this instance, it was not only impossible to go on, but the camels must travel with the rest of the expedition's livestock for many days and miles and a full-scale rodeo every day and every mile was not the way to assure success. Since a definite and final settlement was obviously indispensable, Ali requested and received Lieutenant Beale's permission to put the camels in the same corral with the horses and mules.

The immediate result was pandemonium. Though the camels again refused to give way to excitement, just because everything about them was hysterical, and remained serene, the horses and mules did everything except tear the corral apart. Since no flesh and blood could maintain such a pace, eventually they had to quiet down because they were too tired to do anything else. Now, although the camels formed their own group and stood apart from the rest, all was still peaceful. East and West had finally met, and, even though neither considered the other socially acceptable, at least they had become acquainted. What might have been a major problem was already solved.

Some distance away from the corral, a herd of more than three hundred sheep were bedded under the watchful eye of a Mexican herder and his dog. The sheep were also to go with the expedition, Ali neither knew nor cared why. There were to be eight big freight wagons, each drawn by six mules, and two smaller wagons for personal effects and Lieutenant Beale's engineering equipment. There was a total of fifty-six men, most of them soldiers who had discarded conventional uniforms in favor of more practical buckskin garb. There was a miscellany of livestock, to serve wherever extra animals were needed.

Some of the soldiers were to help with the camels. Ali knew nothing about any of them except that they knew nothing about camels. Some, as usual, resented such duty but, for once, resentment of Ali and his charges posed no problem. Though relations were on a congenial and informal basis, nobody had the faintest doubt but that Lieutenant Beale commanded.

Foremost among the enthusiastic advocates of the proposed Camel Corps, Beale had taken a strong liking to Sied, the white _dalul_, and Ali had already given him a few riding lessons. In addition, whenever he could spare the time, Beale was sitting at Ali's feet and doing his best to learn Syrian, so that he might address the camels in a tongue with which they were already familiar.

Known as a fair-minded man, Beale also had a reputation for meting out deserved punishment with anything except kid gloves. Thus there was small probability that smoldering resentment would be expressed in hostile action, as had been the case at Camp Verde. One of the camels, that had somehow escaped from the khan and strayed, died shortly after she was recovered. Subsequent examination disclosed that she had been hit on the neck with sufficient force to fracture the bones. Nobody ever found out who did it.

Presently, Ali got up and carefully folded his blanket. He laid it beside the spare clothing and few personal articles that belonged to him and wrapped all in a square of canvas. Though he hadn't the least trouble carrying all his worldly goods in one hand, it never even occurred to Ali that he lacked anything. On those rare occasions when he gave the matter any thought, the contents of his bundle were wealth indeed compared with what he'd had on the night he rode Ben Akbar away from Al Misri's camp.

Leaving the bundle where it lay, Ali devoted himself to the first solemn duty of every morning. He walked toward the corral. Seeing him, Ben Akbar detached himself from the little herd of camels and came to the fence. Ali dug in his pocket for a lump of sugar, a delicacy that only the wealthy could enjoy elsewhere but that was available to even the poorest in America. Ben Akbar licked it from the palm of his hand and made gusty smacking noises as he chewed. Ali scratched the big _dalul's_ neck.

"We are on the way," he murmured. "The camp of idleness lies behind, and once more the caravan routes are ahead. It is well."

Only the cook, a sour individual who must necessarily be astir long before anyone else if breakfast was to be eaten in time for an early start, had been up before Ali. He greeted the young camel driver with a grunt, but heaped a plate with food and filled a mug with coffee. Ali had finished his breakfast when the rest of the camp began to stir.

Returning to the corral, Ali looked past Ben Akbar to the remaining camels. A troubled frown creased his brow.

The horses and mules were none of his responsibility, for which he was duly thankful. The camels were, and Ali's frown deepened as the problem he must solve assumed its correct proportions. On the trip from Camp Verde, the camels had carried little except their bells, harness and a few gay trappings to add color. In spite of that, and a leisurely pace, some had come in sore-footed.

Because Lieutenant Beale was determined to forestall any possible accusations to the effect that there had been no fair test, every camel was to carry a full load from this camp on. Though all were in superb condition in every respect save one, that single lack could be serious and perhaps disastrous. Since their feet were still soft, sore-footed camels were not only to be expected but were practically inevitable. Until such time as they were again trail-hardened, camels that might otherwise have left a favorable impression on a highly-skeptical public would make a dismal showing indeed.

Ali shrugged. There was nothing for it except go on, hope for the best and trust Lieutenant Beale.

Entering the corral, Ali saddled and bridled Ben Akbar and tied him to the top rail. It would help nothing if some soldier who decided he could handle Ben Akbar as he might a fractious mule were trampled and mauled for his pains.

Presently the soldiers came. All had considerable experience in conventional Army transport and all would have known exactly what to do if they were about to deal with conventional beasts of burden. As it was, none had the vaguest notion of the correct procedure with camels, and their lack of knowledge was expressed in a lack of confidence. They were awkward and self-conscious, and, at the same time, they were trying to conceal their uncertainty beneath a mask of indifference.

"Here we are, pal," the leader informed Ali. "What's next?"

Ali grinned, understanding nothing but having been previously informed that his helpers would need instruction. Before anything else, he pointed to Ben Akbar. As Lieutenant Beale had instructed, he said, "Bad one. Stay away."

The soldiers regarded Ben Akbar with respect plus challenging interest. All had met the bad ones and none had stayed away, but they had been handling beasts with which they were familiar. This time, at least until they had a better idea of what they were doing, it might be well to take this camel driver's advice. They turned expectantly back to him.

Ali saddled Mohamet, seeming to do so with a few deft motions, but years of experience and great skill were his invisible helpers. None knew better than he that a camel must be saddled with absolute perfection. If anything less, a slipping saddle will be certain a chafe a tender hump. It was an unwise practice, even if one had no regard for the animal itself; sore-backed camels cannot carry packs.