Part 8 (2/2)

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 pa.s.senger. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+p 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 friends.h.i.+p. 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.

n.o.body on the _Supply_ ever forgot that Lieutenant Porter was in command, but n.o.body 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+p 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 sh.o.r.eward 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 ash.o.r.e 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.

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