"What do you mean?"
"Is he good's a horse or mule?"
"Much better," Ali stated.
The old man shook a puzzled head. "That don't hardly jibe with those
camels on the Heely. Wasn't nobody payin' them no mind, 'cept some
heathen Papagoes that was fixin' to eat 'em. I was tempted to ketch one
an' see how it rode, but a cowboy said they wasn't worth ketchin'. The
Army fetched 'em from some place in Texas, he said, an' turned 'em loose
on the Heely on account they was more fuss than worth."
Ali's heart sank at this first news in more than two years of the camels
left behind at Camp Verde, but he told himself that he should have
expected nothing else. He drew some comfort from a quick assurance that
neither Mimico nor Major Wayne could possibly have accompanied any
expedition that would abandon camels. Whoever had loosed those five in
the Arizona desert, where they would certainly find conditions to their
liking, knew nothing of camels and cared less.