But one night a man popped his head in and shouted , `` Get out , quick ! They 're coming ! My tent 's gone ! '' I knew who `` they '' were , so I put on my boots and waterproof and scuttled out into the slush . Little Vixen , my fox terrier , went out through the other side ; and then there was a roaring and a grunting and bubbling , and I saw the tent cave in , as the pole snapped , and begin to dance about like a mad ghost . A camel had blundered into it , and wet and angry as I was , I could not help laughing . Then I ran on , because I did not know how many camels might have got loose , and before long I was out of sight of the camp , plowing my way through the mud . At last I fell over the tail-end of a gun , and by that knew I was somewhere near the artillery lines where the cannon were stacked at night . As I did not want to plowter about any more in the drizzle and the dark , I put my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun , and made a sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found , and lay along the tail of another gun , wondering where Vixen had got to , and where I might be . Just as I was getting ready to go to sleep I heard a jingle of harness and a grunt , and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears . He belonged to a screw-gun battery , for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings and chains and things on his saddle pad . The screw-guns are tiny little cannon made in two pieces , that are screwed together when the time comes to use them . They are taken up mountains , anywhere that a mule can find a road , and they are very useful for fighting in rocky country . Behind the mule there was a camel , with his big soft feet squelching and slipping in the mud , and his neck bobbing to and fro like a strayed hen 's . Luckily , I knew enough of beast language -- not wild-beast language , but camp-beast language , of course -- from the natives to know what he was saying . He must have been the one that flopped into my tent , for he called to the mule , `` What shall I do ? Where shall I go ? I have fought with a white thing that waved , and it took a stick and hit me on the neck . '' -LRB- That was my broken tent pole , and I was very glad to know it . -RRB- `` Shall we run on ? ''
`` Oh , it was you , '' said the mule , `` you and your friends , that have been disturbing the XXXXX ?
camel camp feet mountains muzzle pieces tail things time waterproof