Monday morning found them mounted and ready for the long journey across the desert to the first oasis. From the back of a camel Charlie Vance kept the party in good humor with his quaint remarks. “Say, Doc, it’s worth the price. How I wish the pater, your wife and Molly could see us now, Livingston wouldn’t do a thing to these chocolate colored gentry of Arabia.”

“And Miss Scott? Where does she come in?” questioned Reuel with an assumption of gaiety he was far from feeling.

“Oh,” replied Charlie, not at all nonplussed. “Cora isn’t in the picture; I’m thinking of a houri.”

“Same old thing, Charlie—the ladies?”

“No,” said Charlie, solemnly. “It’s business this time. Say, Briggs, the sight of a camel always makes me a child again. The long-necked beast is inevitably associated in my mind with Barnum’s circus and playing hookey. Pop wants me to put out my sign and go in for business, but the show business suits me better. For instance,” he continued with a wave of his hand including the entire caravan, “Arabs, camels, stray lions, panthers, scorpions, serpents, explorers, etc., with a few remarks by yours truly, to the accompaniment of the band—always the band you know, would make an interesting show—a sort of combination of Barnum and Kiralfy.15 The houris would do Kiralfy’s act, you know. There’s money in it.”

“Were you ever serious in your life, Charlie?”

“What the deuce is the need of playing funeral all the time, tell me that, Briggs, will you?”

The great desert had the sea’s monotony. They rode on and on hour after hour. The elements of the view were simple. Narrow valleys and plains bounded by picturesque hills lay all about them. The nearer hills to the right had shoulders and hollows at almost regular intervals, and a sky-line of an almost regular curve. Under foot the short grass always seemed sparse, and the low sage-shrubs rather dingy, but as they looked over the plain stretching away in every direction, it had a distinctly green tint. They saw occasionally a red poppy and a purple iris. Not a tree was to be seen, nor a rock. Sometimes the land lay absolutely level and smooth, with hardly a stone larger than a bean. The soft blue sky was cloudless, the caravan seemed to be the only living creature larger than a gazelle in the great solitude. Even Reuel was aroused to enthusiasm by the sight of a herd of these graceful creatures skimming the plain. High in the air the larks soared and sang.