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.