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 and seemed rather badly blown. Ben Abi saluted and cried, "Good-bye!" as he passed, thinking that he had surely won the race.

But Ali and Joie kept right on at their steady pace of nine miles an hour. They rested five minutes, and Ali gave Joie a rather stingy drink of water, and they were off for the return run.

When they reached the crest of the mountain, Ben Abi and Black Araby were three miles away at the foot. They had gained two miles and Ali was much elated. In the race across the desert they closed up the gap to within a hundred yards, so if they won it would be on the last five miles.

Ali noted as he turned off the desert trail that Black Araby was acting strangely. Ben Abi was having difficulty in keeping her in the road. She was zig-