“Moon followed moon in the wilderness, and time, and close association, brought thorough understanding. And I came to love my master, as I am sure he loved me. He was often kind in the hardest hours of stress, when I was grievously hungry and leg-weary, and apt to lose heart altogether in the interior of the terrible desert. He would dismount for an hour or more, sometimes, and search in the surroundings for a few handfuls of vegetation which he would bring to me to eat, while I kept on along with the others of the caravan. And at nights, if he could manage it, he brought me tit-bits that I saw the others did not get. “And so it came about that I always watched my master wherever he happened to be; and that was in many places, for he was ever restless, and never idle. When we were turned loose at an encampment, to find what grazing we could pick up, I would raise my head whenever I saw him afar off, returning on foot from hunting for meat, or the curious things that he gathered—all of which had different and alarming scents to my inquiring nostrils—and when he reached the encampment I would leave my comrades and go to see him, for he would surely pat me kindly, while, sometimes, when there was sufficient water, he allowed me to drink from the basin he had washed in; and that was sweet in the desert, although the portion was ever so little. “As the long, long journey progressed, through distance of time too great to count, many of my comrades weakened and fell out, and some died; and there came a time when only a few were left. Like all my comrades, I had vastly changed by then, being lean, and tired out by constant strain of travel, lack of sufficient food, and worry through fear of the unknown country we traversed. And, at nights, in my anxiety, I sometimes sought my master when he slept, and, after sniffing him to be assured of his presence, would lie down to rest near at hand, gaining thereby confidence and some comfort.