Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/226

 his business. Luckily for Zack, the camel-yard was only three hundred yards away, instead of three hundred miles across the desert. With his long neck craned ahead, Achmet's beast split the Street of the Bazaars, scattering Arabs who knew better than to get in the way of a bolting camel.

"I wants to git off," Zack yelled. Then he got off. There was nothing deliberate or dignified about the dismounting. Neither man nor beast seemed to have a premonition of it. When a bolting camel stops, he stops, totally and completely—flat as a wet rag hurled upon the floor. All at once, like the collapse of a step-ladder, Achmet's camel stopped. Zack did not. He proceeded—over the camel's head.