The Mena weekly star., 1913-06-12
By Harold MacGrath
CHAPTER XIII.
Not a Cheerful Outlook.

George, his brain in tumult, fierce tigerish courage giving fictitious strength to his body, staggered toward her. It was a mad dream, a mirage of his own disordered thoughts. For. tune there? It was not believable. What place had she in this tangled web? He ran his fingers into his hair. gripped, and pulled. If it was a dream the pain did not waken him; Fortune sat there still. Through what ter. TOTS might she not have passed the preceding night? Alone in the desert. without any of those conveniences which are to women as necessary as the air they breathe! He tried to run. but his feet sank too deeply in the pale sand; he could only plod. He must touch her or hear her voice: otherwise he stood upon the brink of madness. There was no doubt in his mind now; he loved her, loved her as deeply and passionately as any sto. ried knight loved his lady; loved her without thought of reward, unselfsh. ly, with great and tender pity, for un. consciously he saw that she, like he, was all alone, not only here in the desert, but along the highways where men set up their dwellings,.
 Mahomed, having an eye upon all things, though apparently seeing only that which was under his immediate concern, saw the young mans inten, tion, and more, read the secret in his face. He was infinitely amused. There were two of them, so it seemed. Quietly he slipped in between George and the girl, and his movement freed Georges mind of its bewilderment. Unhesitatingly, he flung himself upon the Arab, striving to reach the lean, brown throat. Mahomed, strong and unwearied, having no hand in the ac. tual warfare. thrust George back so vigorously that the young man lost his balance and fell prone upon the sand. He was so weak that the fall stunned him. Mahomed stepped for ward, doubtless with the generous i'm. pulse to prove that in the matter of kicks he desired to show no partial ity, when a hand caught at his bur. house. He paused and looked down, It was the girl.
 Don't! A brave man would not do that"
 Mahomed, moved by some feeling that eluded immediate analysis, turned about. It was time to be of, if he wished to reach Serapeum the following night. Pursuit he knew to be out of the question, since who was there to know that there was any. thing to pursue? But many miles in. tervened between here and his desti. nation. He dared not enter Serapeum in the daytime. Lying upon the canal bank as 1t did, the possibility of en. counterinig a stray white man con. fronted him. Every camel-way ire quented by Europeans must of ne. cessity be avoided, every town of any size skirted, and all the while he must keep parallel with known paths or be- come lost himself Not to become lost himself. that was his real con. NNiAs lS Ndi du Nds pAONlolphSu for months, and he knew Asia-Minor as well as the lines upon his palms, There were sand-storms, too but against these blighting visitations he would match his vigilant eye and the instinct of the camels The one way in which these peculiar storms might distress him lay in the total oblitera- ton of the way-signs, certain rocks, certain hills, without the guidance of which, like a good ship bereft of It's compass, he might fall away from his course, notwithstanding that he would always travel toward the sun.
 And there was also the vital ques- ton of water; he must measure the time between each well, each oasis, So, then. aside from these dangers with which he felt able to cope, there was one unforeseen: the chance meet Ing with wandering caravan headed by white men in search of rugs and carpets. These fools were eternally hunting about the wastes of the world; they were never satisfied un- less they were proving into countries where they had no business to be, were always breaking the laws of the ca nphs and the Koran.
 The girl was beautiful in her pale.