Hamid's father was a Sheik, or captain of a tribe of Bedouins, the real desert tribes of Arabs, who live only in tents in an oasis of the desert. They had pitched their tents in this particular spot because of its being a very suitable one in which to pasture their camels. The sole wealth of a Bedouin is his flocks and herds and his horse and his firearms; and, of course, his tent and his few simple belongings. Some of the Sheiks raise horses, others sheep, and others camels. The people of Hamid's tribe lived by raising and selling camels to their neighbours who did not raise them, or to the merchants in the cities and towns. "Don't baby camels look as if they would break in two?" said Rashid, as they came up to a group of young camels, "their legs are so long and thin." "Father is going to take some of the colts to sell to the great Sheik who has the fine horses. Perhaps he will let us go with him," said Hamid. "I heard Nassar-Ben tell him last night that the young camels were now strong enough for the journey. "Nassar-Ben is our camel-sheik; and he and his men guard the herd. There he sits in the shadow of the tent, and those are his children scrambling around and playing on that old camel's back," continued Hamid, bound that his little friend should know all about everything. "Wait, oh, babies! I can mount quicker than that," shouted Hamid to Nassar-Ben's children, who were amusing themselves climbing over the back of one of the old camels. "Look! This is the way to mount a camel," said Hamid, as he climbed up one of the legs of a big camel as if it were a tree-trunk; and, finally, throwing his leg over the beast's neck, he was soon perched on the hump in the middle of the camel's back. "Come up, come up, that's the stairway!" he called to Rashid. "Oh, I daren't," cried poor little Rashid, slipping back as he tried to hold on to the camel's rusty knee. "You will learn in time, my little master," said Nassar-Ben, lifting him up beside Hamid. Then all the other little children swarmed up the old camel's legs; and, when the camel man gave her a blow with a stick, away she went, the children laughing and holding on to each other to keep from slipping off. Suddenly the old camel wheeled around and started back at a gallop. Little Rashid had ridden on a camel before, but never on a bare-back camel in that fashion. The first thing he knew he was lying in the dust, together with one of the little Bedouin boys, whom he had pulled off with him as he fell. [Illustration: IN THE BLACK TENTS.] "Oh!" said the little boy, half-crying, "you made me fall off on purpose!" He felt so badly that he, one of the boys of the camel-sheik, should have been seen to fall from a camel that he began to thump Rashid as hard as he could. "Fie! for shame!" cried Hamid, rushing up to them as he jumped down from the camel. "Is this the way to treat a stranger and a guest in our tents?"