"You bet I can. Do you remember the time we hitched that big bronk up with old Wall-eye, to haul water? Got back here a little ways beyond the stable with two barrels sloshing over the top, and the cat--not this one, but a black-and-white cat, that was--the cat jumped out from behind a buck brush. _Hot dog!_ That bronk went straight in the air! Remember that time?" Luck leaned back in his chair to laugh. "I shore do," Applehead chuckled. "Luck, here, he was walkin' behind the sled and drivin',--and he wasn't as big as he is now, even. That was soon after he come out here to fatten up like. Little bit of a peaked--why, I bet he didn't weigh over a hundred pounds after a full meal! He was ridin' the lines an' steadyin' the bar'ls, busy as a dog at a badger hole, when the cat jumped out, an' that there bronk r'ared back and swung off short and hit fur the mesa; and Luck here a-hangin' and hollerin', an' me a-leggin' it to ketch up, and bar'ls teeterin' and--Mind how you was bound you'd kill that cat uh mine?" he asked Luck, tears of laughter dimming his eyes. "That was ole Leather Lungs. He tuk sick an' died, year after that. Luck shore was mad enough to eat that thar cat, now I'm tellin' yuh!" The Happy Family laughed together over the picture Applehead had crudely painted for them. But Luck, although he had started the story, already was slipping away from the present and was trying to peer into the future. He did not even hear what Applehead was saying to keep the boys in a roar of mirth. He was mentally reckoning the number of days since he had wired his order for a C.O.D. shipment of negative to be rushed to Albuquerque. Two days in Los Angeles, getting ready for the venture; two days on the way to Applehead's ranch, one day here,--five days altogether. He had told them to rush the order. If they did, there was a chance that it might have arrived. He decided suddenly to make the trip and see; but first he would develop the exposed negative of the forenoon's work. He got up with that businesslike air which the Happy Family had already begun to recognize as a signal for quick action, and took off his coat. "Happy, I wish you and Bud would carry me some water," he said. "I'll show you where to put it; I'm going to need a lot. Will you help me wind the film on my patent rack, Andy? And I'll want that little team hitched to the buckboard so I can go to town after I'm through. I've got some hopes of my negative being there." "Want the rest of us to work on that stage, don't you, boss?" Weary asked, pausing in the doorway to roll a smoke. "And please may I wipe off my eyebrows?" "Why, sure!--to both questions," answered Luck, going over to his camera. "I can't do much more till I get more negative, even with the light right, which it isn't. You go ahead and finish the stage this afternoon. And be sure the uprights are guyed for a high wind; she sure can blow, in this man's country."