I shall die," said Arlee. "I shall simply die if I have to go
another step upon that creature."

She said it cheerfully, but firmly, a sleepy, sunburned little
nomad, sitting cross-legged in the sands, slowly plaiting her
honey-colored hair. "Even this," she announced, indicating the
slight gesture of braiding, "is agony."

"It's the morning after," said Billy, testing his shoulder with wry
grimaces. "It's yesterday's speed--and then this infernally cold
night. No wonder we're lame. Why, I have one universal crick
wherever I used to have muscles. But let me call your attention to
the fact that we are in the wilds of Egypt and that tangerines are
hardly a lasting breakfast. Something has to be done."

"Not upon camels," said Arlee fixedly.

"They say it doesn't hurt after an hour or so more."

"I shouldn't live to find out."

"A walk," he suggested, "a slow, swaying, gently undulating
walk----?"

"A long, lingering, agonizing death," the young lady translated.
She tossed the curly end of her braid over her shoulder and rose,
with sounds of lamentation. "I ought to have known better than to
sit down again when I was once up," she confided sadly.

"Just what," inquired her companion, "is your idea for the day? How
do you expect to reach Girgeh? It can't be very far away now----"

"Then we'll walk--_we'll_ walk," she emphasized, "and tow those
ships of the desert after us. That will be bad enough, but
better--_what's that?_"

Like a top, for all his stiffness, Billy spun about to stare where
her finger pointed. Over the crest of a hillock, far to the
north--yes, something was hurrying their way.

"A man on horseback," said Arlee anxiously. "They can't have traced
us, can they, all this way----?"

"Of course not--but we'll take no chances," returned Billy briskly;
"no more talk of pedestrian tours now!" and promptly he helped the
girl, no longer demurring, into the saddle, and thwacked her camel
into arising, just dodging the long, yellow teeth that the resentful
beast tried to fasten upon his shoulder.

They started at no soothing walk, but at a hurrying trot.

Worriedly, her delicate brows knitting, "It's absurd, but," said
Arlee, "they could have traced us, I suppose, from my telegraphing
at that little native station for my trunks to be sent."

"And mine," said Billy. "And from my trying to get my letter of
credit cashed."

"That Captain could have telegraphed to all the places down the
line to know