ky
for a limit as usual.

One thing was quite clear: Ayisha had made herself known to them,
and they were properly impressed. They dismounted from their
camels, and, after bowing to her as respectfully as any lord of
the desert decently could do to a woman, they left their beasts
kneeling and started all together toward us.

So Grim went out to meet them, even outdoing their measured
dignity, striding as if the desert were his heritage. But he went
only as far as the railway track, and waited; to have gone a step
farther would have made them think themselves his superiors. Ali
Baba, Mujrim, Narayan Singh, and I, went out and stood behind him
at a properly respectful distance.

CHAPTER VI

"Him and Me--Same Father!"

Every detail of a man's bearing is watched carefully in that
land. Every action has its value. The etiquette of the desert is
more strict, and more dangerous to neglect, than that of palaces,
although it is simpler and more to the point, being based on the
instinct of self-preservation.

The Arabs who approached us, having ridden straight into a trap
for all they knew, for they had expected friends and found
strangers, were even more than usually observant of formality.
They were fierce, fine-looking fellows, possessed of that dignity
that only warfare with the desert breeds, and they saluted Grim
with the punctilio of men who know the meaning of a fight to him
who doubtless understands it too. A very different matter, that,
to raising your Stetson on Broadway, with two cops on the corner
and the Stars and Stripes floating from the hotel roof. They eyed
Grim the while in the same sort of way that men who might be
charged with trespass look at the game warden, waiting for him to
speak first.

_"Allah ysabbak bilkhair!"_ he rolled out at last.

_"Allah y'a fik, ya Ali Higg!"_ they answered one after the other.

And then the oldest of them--a black-bearded stalwart with
extremely aquiline nose and dark-brown eyes that fairly gleamed
from under the linen head-dress, took on himself the role
of spokesman.

"O Ali Higg! May Allah give you peace!"

"And to you peace!" Grim answered.

I could not see Grim's face, of course, since I stood behind
him, but I did not detect the least movement of surprise or
nervousness. He stood as if he were used to being called by
that name, but the rest of us did not dare look at one another.
Once across that railway-line we were in the real Ali Hig