There was a ripple along flanks and ribs, but only after a marked interval was Ben Akbar able to raise his head. Ali dropped beside him and eased the proud head into his lap. He stroked it gently.
"We meet again, oh, brother," he murmured. "It is well."
He continued to caress Ben Akbar, and, under the soft moon, a thoughtful expression came over his face. There had been a very long time and a very long journey since he had boarded the Supply. Now he sat in the desert, comforting the last remaining camel of all that were brought to America. How could such an auspicious beginning lead to this end?
The failure could not be charged to the camels. Lieutenant Beale himself had declared that any one of them was worth any six mules. Then who, or what, was to blame? Ali considered various explanations that had been advanced.
Some declared that the entire experiment was fore-doomed by anonymous but invincible forces interested in perpetuating large profits derived from horse and mule trading. Their combined strength overwhelmed the advocates of camel transport. These reports were partly right, Ali conceded, but not entirely so. He could not imagine Major Wayne or Lieutenant Beale yielding to the combined power of anything. Anyhow, it went without saying that these forces had done all they could to prevent the importation of camels in the first place. They had not succeeded.
It was true that neither Major Wayne nor Lieutenant Beale had been active in the Camel Corps for years, and Jefferson Davis no longer mattered after the Confederacy he headed lost the War between the States. But adverse influence alone had never defeated the camels.
Many contended that the War itself was responsible. Nobody had time for camels while the battles raged and nobody was interested when peace came. Another part truth, Ali decided, but by no means a whole truth. To say that the War between the States doomed camels was as absurd as declaring it doomed railroads.
Even the popular refusal to accept camels—that sometimes mounted to flaring resentment against them—was not to blame for their downfall. That which has practical worth cannot forever remain unnoticed and camels had proved themselves superior to any other beast of burden.
Ali bent his head and crooned softly in Ben Akbar's ear. The big dalul sighed softly and pressed his chin hard against his friend's knee. Ali resumed caressing the camel.
What ill wind, he wondered, had blown the day these camels were finally aboard and the Supply set sail? They had come and they had proven themselves, but far from any conquest they had found only oblivion. Why?