Too old, that
why. No work. All time eat. Better dead. That way think all my people.
All time that way."

Johnny looked at him in astonishment, then he said slowly:

"I guess I get you. In this commune, this tribe of yours, everyone does
the best he can for the gang. When he is too old to work, fish or hunt,
the best thing he can do is die, so you hang him. Am I right?"

"Sure a thing," replied the boy. "That's just it."

Johnny shot back:

"No enjoying a ripe old age in this commune business?"

"No. Oh, no."

"Then I'm off this commune stuff forever," exclaimed Johnny. "The old
order of things like we got back in the States is good enough for me.
And, I guess it's not so old after all. It's about the newest thing
there is. This commune business belongs back in the stone age when
primitive tribes were all the organizations there were."

He had addressed this speech to no one in particular. He now turned to
the boy, a black frown on his brow.

"See here," he said sharply, "this man, no die, See? Live. See? All time
live, see? No kill. You tell those guys that. Tell them I mebby come
back one winter, one summer. Come back. Old man dead. I kill three of
them. See?"

Johnny took out his automatic and played with it longingly.

"Tell them if they don't act as if they mean to do what I say, I'll
shoot them now, three of them."

The boy interpreted this speech. Some of the men turned pale beneath
their brown skins; some shifted uneasily. They all answered quickly.

"They say, all right," the boy explained solemnly. "Say that one, if had
known you so very much like old man, no want-a hang that one."

"All right." Johnny smiled as he bowed himself out.

It was the first near-hanging he had ever attended and he hoped it would
be the last. But as he came out into the clear afternoon air he drank
in three full breaths, then said, slowly:

"Communism! Bah!"

Hardly had he said this than he began to realize that he had a move
coming and a speedy one. He was in the real, the original, the only
genuine No Man's Land in the world. He was under the protection of no
flag. The only law in force here was the law of the tribe. He had
violated that law, defied it. He actually, for the moment, had set
himself up as a dictator.

"Gee!" he muttered. "Wish I had time to be their king!"

But he didn't have time, for in the first place, all the pangs of past
homesick days were returning to urge him across the Strait. In the