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.