"Iron! Iron, sure as thunder!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Those iron hoops
are what did it." He rubbed his hand vexedly. "I knew better than that,
too. I don't see why I didn't think about those hoops. Of all the
idiotic, fool--"

"What kinda brain do you think you've got in your head, anyway?" Andy
broke in spiritedly. "Way you've been working it lately, engineering
every blamed detail yourself, you oughtn't to wonder if one little thing
gets by you."

"Well, it's done now," Luck dismissed the accident stoically. "Lucky I
started in on those costume and make-up tests of all you fellows, and
that scene of your wife's. And if I'd used the other half barrel instead
of this five-gallon keg for a start-off, I'd have spoiled the whole
bunch. I'll have to throw out all that developer. Blast the luck! Well,
let's get busy." He pulled out the keg and held it up for another
disgusted look. "I won't bother fixing that at all. Call Happy and Bud
back, will you, and have them roll this barrel of developer out and ditch
it? And then take those two half barrels you were going to fix, and wrap
them with clothesline,--that cotton line on one of the trunks,--and knock
off all the hoops. I'm going to beat it to 'Querque and see if that
stuff's there. We'll try developing the rest this evening, after I get
back. Darn such luck!"

The five thousand feet of negative had not arrived, but there was a
letter from the company saying that they had shipped it. Luck, bone-tired
and cold from his fifteen-mile drive across the unsheltered mesa, turned
away from the express office, debating whether to wait for the film or go
back to the ranch. It would be a pretty cold drive back, in the edge of
the evening and facing that raw wind; he decided that he would save time