Dick Merriwell's Pranks: or, Lively Times in the Orient

“Those are grapevines,” exclaimed the professor. “In the fall they cut them down to that height and lay them flat on the ground, as you see them. They are now beginning to prop them up. They will be irrigated and dressed, and then new branches will shoot out in all directions and cover the soil and bear fruit.”

As the train wound in and out of the gorges, clinging to the mountainsides, they beheld many strange and interesting things. Laborers were setting out mulberry trees in long trenches. Other laborers were digging the trenches, three men working a single shovel. One of the men manipulated the shovel, holding the handle and driving it down into the soil. Two others lifted it out with its load, doing so by pulling at ropes attached to the shovel just above the blade. They all worked together with astonishing ease and skill. Great hedges of cactus stretched along the railroad in many places. They gazed with interest at the old-fashioned irrigating canals. They beheld men plowing with the same sort of crooked stick that was used for that purpose in Bible times. But there were no farmhouses scattered over the country, for the people still lived in villages, as they did in former days, when it was necessary for neighbors to band together for protection.

For a great portion of the way the railroad followed the old caravan trail, and all along this trail were scattered trains of camels and donkeys, loaded with all kinds of goods, such as silk, cotton, grain, machinery, poplar trees, fuel, and other things. Petroleum, however, seemed to form the greater portion of many a cargo.

The sun shone from a cloudless sky.

Brad Buckhart was strangely silent. He gazed out of the window in an abstracted manner, paying very little attention to what the professor and Dick were saying.

Finally Dick began to joke him about his unusual manner.

“Don’t worry, Brad,” he laughed. “We’ll overtake her soon. We may find her in Damascus.”

“Her?” grunted the Texan.

“Yes.”

“Why, who – ”

“Nadia Budthorne, of course. Her last letter told you she would visit Damascus and then proceed to Jerusalem, in company with her brother. You can’t fool me, old man. You have been counting on overtaking her somewhere in the Holy Land. Don’t deny it.”

“All right,” said Buckhart, his face flushed, but his manner a bit defiant; “I won’t deny it, Mr. Smarty. You sure have hit it all right. I – ”

At this moment the whistle of the locomotive shrieked a wild alarm and the brakes were applied violently. Something was wrong. The train came to a stop.

And just outside the window of the compartment occupied by the old professor and two boys a dead camel lay stretched on the ground, blood flowing from several horrible wounds. The animal’s pack was broken open and the goods scattered in all directions.

Not ten feet from the camel lay a gorgeously dressed, black-bearded Arab, likewise apparently dead.

“Whoop!” cried Buckhart. “There certain have been some doings here! I opine the camel tried to butt the train off the track, somewhat to the grief of Mr. Camel.”

Men now came running toward the spot, all greatly excited. They were principally camel drivers and like men from a caravan. They gathered about the prostrate Arab and made a great demonstration. Their gestures toward the train were very threatening.

One of the guards flung open the door of the compartment occupied by our friends.

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