He found pomp and circumstance.  An enclosure had been roped off to exclude the stock grazing at large in the meadow.  Three tents had been erected.  They were made of a very light, shiny, expensive-looking material with fringes along the walls, flies overhead and stretched in front, sod cloths before the entrances.  Three gaily painted wooden rocking chairs, an equally gaudy hammock, a table flanked with benches, a big cooking stove in the rear, canvas pockets hung from the trees—­a dozen and one other conveniences and luxuries bespoke the occupants as well-to-do and determined to be comfortable.  Two Japanese servants dressed all in white moved silently and mysteriously in the background, a final touch of incongruity in a rough country.

Before Bob had moved on, two men stepped into view from the interior of one of the tents.  They paced slowly to the gaudy rocking chairs and sat down.  In their progress they exhibited that peculiar, careless but conscious deliberation of gait affected everywhere by those accustomed to appearing in public.  In their seating of themselves, their producing of cigars, their puffings thereon, was the same studied ignoring of observation; a manner which, it must be acknowledged, becomes second nature to those forced to its adoption.  It was a certain blown impressiveness, a significance in the smallest movements, a self-importance, in short, too large for the affairs of any private citizen.  It is to be seen in those who sit in high places, in clergy, actors off the boards, magistrates, and people behind shop windows demonstrating things to street crowds.  Bob’s first thought was of amusement that this elaborate unconsciousness of his lone presence should be worth while; his second a realization that his presence or the presence of any one else had nothing to do with it.  He wondered, as we all wonder at times, whether these men acted any differently when alone and in utter privacy, whether they brushed their teeth and bathed with all the dignity of the public man.

The smaller, but evidently more important of these men, wore a complete camping costume.  His hat was very wide and stiff of brim and had a woven band of horsehair; his neckerchief was very red and worn bib fashion in the way Bob had come to believe that no one ever wore a neckerchief save in Western plays and the illustrations of Western stories; his shirt was of thick blue flannel, thrown wide open at the throat; his belt was very wide and of carved leather; his breeches were of khaki, but bagged above and fitted close below the knee into the most marvellous laced boots, with leather flaps, belt lacings, and rows of hobnails with which to make tracks.  Bob estimated these must weigh at least three pounds apiece.  The man wore a little pointed beard and eyeglasses.  About him Bob recognized a puzzling familiarity.  He could not place it, however, but finally decided he must have carried over a recollection from a tailor’s fashion plate of the Correct Thing for Camping.