Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/200

 an explorer—his careful husbanding of his great vitality, and his refusal to worry over problems that lay in the future.

When the vision of Mary flashed on him as he watched the summits of the dunes, silvered by the cold moonlight, he put it aside resolutely. The last sight of the girl—the slender figure perched jauntily on the camel as she rode away after their quarrel—tormented him from time to time. In spite of himself an elfin chord of memory visioned the friendly gray eyes, and the delicate face of Mary Hastings.

Gray set himself to considering his situation, realizing that he had desperate need of all his wits if he was to face Sungan and its people.

First there was the puzzle of the camel tracks that had frightened Mirai Khan. These tracks had been left by the party that had attacked Sir Lionel and himself. They had been sighted the day before.

It was possible that the first prints they had seen were those of one of their enemies, and that this man had carried the news of their coming to his companions. It would have been easy for the men of the camel feet—as Gray thought of them—to trail his party without being seen among the dunes. Or else, they might have been following Sir Lionel.

Gray decided that this was what had happened. The men of the camel feet had been tracking the Englishman.