Part 9 (2/2)

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 ma.s.sacre 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 a.s.signed 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 unrehea.r.s.ed 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 p.r.i.c.kly-pear cactus was abundant, the builders had used it to construct their fence.

Far from being repelled by such a th.o.r.n.y 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 surpa.s.s 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 a.s.signed 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.

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