He shook his head doubtfully.

Then I said, just think of how it looks--think of how it would read, to self-reliant Americans, that we went sneaking through this deserted wilderness under the protection of this masquerading Arab, who would break his neck getting out of the country if a man that was a man ever started after him.

It was a mean, low, degrading position.

Why were we ever told to bring navy revolvers with us if we had to be protected at last by this infamous star-spangled scum of the desert?
These appeals were vain--the dragoman only smiled and shook his head.
I rode to the front and struck up an acquaintance with King Solomon-in-all-his-glory, and got him to show me his lingering eternity of a gun.

It had a rusty flint lock; it was ringed and barred and plated with silver from end to end, but it was as desperately out of the perpendicular as are the billiard cues of '49 that one finds yet in service in the ancient mining camps of California.