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."

"You're danged right, she can blow!" Applehead testified emphatically.
"She can blow, and she's goin' to blow. You want to take your overshoes
and mittens, boy, when you start out fer town. You know how cold she can
get on that mesa. Chances are you'll come back facin' a blizzard. And,
say! I wisht you'd take that there dog back with yuh, Luck, 'cause if yuh
don't, him and me's shore goin' to tangle, now I'm tellin' yuh! Mighty
funny note when a cat dassent walk acrost his own dooryard in broad
daylight, no more! Poor ole Compadre was shakin' like a leaf when I clumb
up and got him down of'n the windmill. Way the wind was whistlin' up
there, the chances are he's done ketched cold in 'is tail, and if he has,
yuh better see to it that thar dog ain't within gunshot uh me, now I'm