Chapter 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.