le was already
solved because there was no suggestion of weakness there. It was
the best piece of sheer bluffing on a weak hand that I had
ever seen.

"Will Your Honor not visit my town and break bread with me?"
asked Mahommed Abbas.

"If I visit that dung-hill it will be to burn it," Grim answered.
"Send me out that black-faced liar and the Bishareen. I am not
pleased to wait long in the sun."

"If we obey the command do we not merit Your Honor's favor?"

That was a very shrewd question. A weak man with a weak hand
would have walked into that trap by betraying the spirit of
compromise. On the other hand an ordinary bluffer would have
blundered by overdoing the high hand.

"Consider what is known of me," Grim answered. "How many have
disobeyed me and escaped? How many have obeyed and regretted it?
But by the beard of Allah's Prophet," he thundered suddenly, "I
grow weary of words! What son of sixty dogs dares keep me waiting
in the desert while he barks?"

Mahommed Abbas did not like that medicine, especially in front of
all his men. But they had ceased circling long ago and were
waiting stock-still at a respectful distance; for the name of Ali
Higg meant evidently more to them than the honor of their own
sheikh--which at best depends on the sheikh's own generalship. It
was a safe bet that if he had called on them to attack that
minute they would have declined.

So he gave the dignified Arab salute, which Grim deigned to
acknowledge with the slightest possible inclination of the head,
and led his men away.

"What would you have done if he had called your bluff?" I asked
Grim, as soon as they were all out of earshot.

"Dunno," he said, smiling. "I've learned never to try a bluff
unless I'm pretty sure of my man. That guy doesn't own many
chips. As a last resort I'd have to admit I'm a government
officer--if they hadn't killed us all first!"

We sat our camels there for about three quarters of an hour
before half a dozen of Mahommed Abbas' men appeared with Rafiki's
messenger riding the Bishareen between them. His face when they
handed him over was the color of raw liver, and if ever a man was
too scared to try to escape it was he. Ali Baba's two sons got
one on either side of him without making him feel any better, for
he too was a Hebron man and knew them and their reputation. There
was nothing improbable about their throwing in their lot with the
greater robber Ali Higg.

Then the sheikh's men tried t