I lay in the grass on the edge of the steep and talked with the men-folk.  We were kin—­brothers.  I was the American hobo, and they were the American gypsy.  I knew enough of their argot for conversation, and they knew enough of mine.  There were two more in their gang, who were across the river “mushing” in Harrisburg.  A “musher” is an itinerant fakir.  This word is not to be confounded with the Klondike “musher,” though the origin of both terms may be the same; namely, the corruption of the French marche ons, to march, to walk, to “mush.”  The particular graft of the two mushers who had crossed the river was umbrella-mending; but what real graft lay behind their umbrella-mending, I was not told, nor would it have been polite to ask.

It was a glorious day.  Not a breath of wind was stirring, and we basked in the shimmering warmth of the sun.  From everywhere arose the drowsy hum of insects, and the balmy air was filled with scents of the sweet earth and the green growing things.  We were too lazy to do more than mumble on in intermittent conversation.  And then, all abruptly, the peace and quietude was jarred awry by man.

Two bare-legged boys of eight or nine in some minor way broke some rule of the camp—­what it was I did not know; and a man who lay beside me suddenly sat up and called to them.  He was chief of the tribe, a man with narrow forehead and narrow-slitted eyes, whose thin lips and twisted sardonic features explained why the two boys jumped and tensed like startled deer at the sound of his voice.  The alertness of fear was in their faces, and they turned, in a panic, to run.  He called to them to come back, and one boy lagged behind reluctantly, his meagre little frame portraying in pantomime the struggle within him between fear and reason.  He wanted to come back.  His intelligence and past experience told him that to come back was a lesser evil than to run on; but lesser evil that it was, it was great enough to put wings to his fear and urge his feet to flight.

Still he lagged and struggled until he reached the shelter of the trees, where he halted.  The chief of the tribe did not pursue.  He sauntered over to a wagon and picked up a heavy whip.  Then he came back to the centre of the open space and stood still.  He did not speak.  He made no gestures.  He was the Law, pitiless and omnipotent.  He merely stood there and waited.  And I knew, and all knew, and the two boys in the shelter of the trees knew, for what he waited.

The boy who had lagged slowly came back.  His face was stamped with quivering resolution.  He did not falter.  He had made up his mind to take his punishment.  And mark you, the punishment was not for the original offence, but for the offence of running away.  And in this, that tribal chieftain but behaved as behaves the exalted society in which he lived.  We punish our criminals, and when they escape and run away, we bring them back and add to their punishment.