"Well, let's see if there are any barrels," said Luck. "I've been
studying on how to rig up some way to develop my film. If we can find
some half barrels and knock the heads out, I can wind the negative around
them with the emulsion side out, and dip it in the bigger barrels of
developer; see how I mean? Believe me, this laboratory problem is going
to be a big one till I can see my way to getting tanks and film racks out
here. But I believe barrels will work all right. And, say! There's some
old hose I saw out by the windmill tank; you get that, and see if you
can't run it under the house and up through a hole in the floor. I expect
it leaks in forty places, but maybe you can mend it. And we ought to have
some way to run the water out in a trough or something. You see what you
can do about that, Andy, while I go and unpack the rest of my camera
outfit. There's a garret up over the ceiling, here, and you'll have to
see what shape it's in for drying film. Stop all the cracks so dust can't
blow in. I want to start taking scenes to-morrow morning, you know. I've
got two hundred feet of raw stock to work with till the other gets here.
I've got to develop my tests before to-morrow so I'll know what I'm
doing. I can't afford to spoil any film."
"Well, hardly," Andy agreed. "By gracious, I hope you're making the rest
of the bunch hump themselves, too. Honest, I'd die if I saw anybody
sitting around in the shade, right now!"
"Andy, did you go and take that shelf after all?" came the reproachful
voice of Rosemary from the kitchen, and Luck retreated by way of the
front door without telling Andy just how busy the other boys were.
The "ketch-all," where Big Medicine and Pink were clearing out the
accumulation of years, was enveloped in a cloud of dust. Down in the
corral a dozen horses were circling, with Applehead moving cautiously
about in the middle dragging his loop and making ready for a throw. There
was one snuffy little bay gelding that he meant to turn over to Luck for
a saddle horse, and he wanted to get him caught and in the stable before
showing him to Luck. Happy Jack was wobbling up the path with an
oversized sack of potatoes balanced on his shoulder, and his face a deep
crimson from the heat and his exertions. Down in the stable the little
black dog, enlivened by the plate of bones Rosemary had given him, had
scented the cat in the loft and was barking hysterically up the ladder.
Luck stepped out briskly, cheered by the atmosphere of bustling
preparation which surrounded him. That he was the moving spirit which
directed all these activities stimulated him like good old wine. It was
for his Big Picture that they were preparing. Already his brain was at
work upon the technique of picture production, formulating a system which
should as far as possible eliminate the risk of failure because of the
handicaps under which he must work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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