“It’s water!” cried Kyle, as he reached a little rock from which the water was falling in a steady stream with a tinkling, musical sound. He laved his hot face and hands in it. “Water coming from the rock!”

“Like the rock smitten by Moses,” said the professor, with a smile. “An unusual sight in the desert, and, as a matter of fact, the only one of its kind within eight hundred miles. Use all you like of it, boys, either for drinking or bathing. It’s probably been running for hundreds of years, and it isn’t going to stop now.”

The boys needed no urging, and their example was followed by the rest of the party. The water was delightfully cool in contrast to the water in their tanks, which had been heated by the desert journey and which, though it supplied their actual physical needs, brought with it little sense of refreshment. They drank till they could drink no more.

“Did you know that we were coming to this?” asked Kyle, a little later, as they were resting, while Alam and Abdullah prepared their tents and beds for the night.

“Yes,” replied the smiling captain. “But I kept quiet about it because I wanted you to have a little surprise. Not an unpleasant one, was it?”

“You bet it wasn’t!” cried Kyle, and Brick echoed him.

“Alam was telling me about it as we came along,” continued Kyle’s uncle. “He says that when he is traveling as guide to a caravan he times the stages of a journey so as to spend a night here.”

“He was telling me, too, of a rather pathetic case that came under his notice a couple of years ago. It seems that an Arab and his wife were traveling in this vicinity and lost their way. They wandered on aimlessly, not knowing water was near, but hoping to come across some. Their own supply was exhausted. One by one their camels died and fell by the road overcome by thirst.

“The man and his wife struggled on until, completely exhausted, she died. He kept on, dragging himself along. But at last he could go no further. His body was found by a passing caravan that Alam was guiding, and it was less than half a mile from the spring. Had he known it was so near, he would doubtless have fought on and reached it. But he died almost as the water was at his lips.”

“Poor fellow! Poor woman!” said Kyle soberly, as he looked out over the moonlit plain that had been the mute witness of this desert tragedy and many others like it.

Cooled and refreshed, all slept well that night, and when the Americans were awakened by Alam at dawn they felt in fine fettle for the work of the day.

Having drunk their fill of the cooling water of the spring and replenished their tanks, they started, with a regretful look behind at the trickling stream that had contributed so greatly to their comfort and whose like they had no expectation of meeting again.

They made the most of the early hours, and had covered a good distance before they stopped at about ten o’clock to rest until the day grew cooler. The Americans were preparing to take a nap when a sudden exclamation of Alam called them to the openings of their tents.

Coming toward them at a rapid gait was a group of wild-looking nomads mounted on camels. All of them were armed with rifles. This was not in itself alarming, as everybody goes armed in the desert. But there was something sinister and aggressive in their appearance and actions that at once aroused suspicion.

“Get your guns,” commanded the captain, as he took his own rifle in the hollow of his arm and stepped outside the tent.

“What do you make of them, Alam?” he asked of the guide, who was studying keenly the coming riders, eight in number.

“They are robbers,” pronounced Alam, as he got his own weapon in readiness.

The boys were tense with excitement and their hearts were beating rapidly. Kyle’s eyes blazed as he looked over his rifle and slipped a cartridge into the breech. Brick also was armed, though he was not especially proficient in the use of a weapon. But his heart was in the right place, and at close quarters, as this struggle promised to be, if it really materialized, he would have to be reckoned with.

As the riders drew nearer, it could be seen that they were well armed. Each man had an almost new carbine with a bandolier full of ammunition slung beside it. In addition everyone had at his saddle two swords and a spear.

“Get behind the cars and don’t fire unless I give the word,” commanded the captain, though he himself stepped out into the open, accompanied by Alam.

The leader of the newcomers was a stalwart man. He wore a vivid red cloth thrown over his shoulders and on his legs were leather boots reaching almost to the thigh, into which his baggy trousers had been thrust. The litham covered the greater portion of his face, permitting only a hooked nose like a hawk’s and a pair of fierce black eyes to be seen. His followers were less elaborately attired. They were mounted on shaggy-haired camels, which seemed to be built for speed and were in excellent condition.

The fearlessness of the captain in coming forward alone to meet them seemed to impress the Arabs and they checked their speed until they came to a stop about twenty yards away.

With his gaze fixed unwaveringly upon them, Captain Kane, followed by the guide, walked toward them until he was within speaking distance.

“Ask them what they want, Alam,” commanded the captain.

Alam addressed the leader of the party, who responded curtly.

“He says,” translated Alam, turning toward the captain, “that no one passes through this part of the desert without paying him tribute. You must do the same.”

“I see,” said the captain, with a faintly amused smile. “Ask him what tribute he demands.”

Again Alam spoke to the leader.

“He himself will be the judge of that,” he reported. “He will search through the devil wagons and take what he and his followers may want. You may keep the rest and go on your way.”

“That’s good of him,” remarked the captain ironically. “Ask him what will happen if we refuse.”

“Then you may commit your souls to Allah, for he will kill you all,” was Alam’s translation of the leader’s answer.

“Tell him first,” commanded the captain, “to watch the magic of the white man’s rifle.”

He took from his pocket a small bottle that he had picked up as he passed out of the tent. He held it aloft and made with it a series of passes in the air. The bandits watched him as though hypnotized, their curiosity and superstition aroused by his, to them, mystical movements.

Then, while they watched, he threw the bottle high in the air, put his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The crack of the rifle was followed by the crash of glass, and the fragments of the bottle fell to the sand.

It was splendid marksmanship, and it created a sensation among the bandits, who gathered their reins tightly in their hands and looked around as though contemplating flight.

The captain held up his hand.

“Tell the chief,” he ordered Alam, “that that is nothing to what the white man can do.”

It was evident now that fear, as well as curiosity, held the band intent on Captain Kane’s next action.

He took from his pocket a silver coin, held it up so that they could see it, made another series of mysterious passes and flung it far from him. His rifle leaped to his shoulder, and the coin, bent and battered, fell some distance away.

A shout of surprise and consternation went up from the bandits. What magic was this that the foreigners summoned at will?

The captain took instant advantage of their demoralization. His whole manner changed. Up to now he had been quiet and restrained. Now his face became terrible. He flung his repeating rifle to his shoulder and swept it like lightning around the huddled circle.

“Go!” he shouted in a voice like thunder. “Go!”

And they went, went like scared rabbits, went in mad panic, crowding upon each other’s heels as they spurred their camels on with wild shouts to get out of the range of that death-dealing rifle.

The captain lowered his weapon and turned with a grim smile toward the tent, while the others of the party rushed toward him full of admiration.

“Oh, Uncle Frank,” cried Kyle, “you were great, simply great!”

“You bet he was!” echoed Brick enthusiastically.

“One of the finest things I ever saw done,” declared Amos Bruce earnestly. “We’re proud of you, Frank.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” disclaimed the captain modestly. “I didn’t want it to come to a fight, for we’d probably have had to kill some of the rascals, and although they might have deserved killing, I didn’t want it to be at our hands. And then, too, some of us might have been hurt. The easiest way in this case proved to be the best way.”

“I guess that will hold them for a while,” exulted Kyle.

“I imagine it will,” replied the captain. “They won’t want any more of our game. We shan’t be troubled any more—by that special band, at least. And likely enough they’ll spread the news that it’s best to leave the men with the devil wagons, as they call them, alone.”

There were no further alarms that day nor for days to come, although as a matter of precaution one of the party kept on guard while the others slept.

But other than human enemies were abroad, as they found out before their trip was over. The desert was whining for its prey!

[Chapter 11 Maze: Help Kyle Escape]