Just to show that Luck was human, even though he was obsessed by a frenzy of work, he sent the boys outside, whenever one of them could be spared, for the smoke they craved and could not have among that five thousand feet of precious but highly inflammable film.  But he did not treat himself to the luxury of a cigarette.

Luck had not yet solved the problem of meeting the expense of the trip to El Paso.  Riding down with a pack-horse would take him too long; the best he could do would not be quick enough; for the Convention would be over before he got there, and his trip therefore useless.  He worked just as fast, however, as though he had only to buy his ticket and take the train.

And then, when the last drumful was drying, he got his idea, and took Andy by the shoulder and led him out into the little front hall.  “Boy,” he said, “you hook up the team and drive like hell out to the ranch and get the camera and all the lenses.  And right under the lid of my trunk you’ll find a letter file marked Receipts.  In the C pocket you’ll find the sales slips of camera and so on; you bring them along.  And bring my bag and any clean socks and handkerchiefs you can find, and my gray suit and some collars and ties.  Oh, and my shoes.  Make it back here by two o’clock if you can; before three at the latest.”

“You bet yuh,” assented Andy just as cheerfully as though he saw some sense in the order.  Luck’s clothes were a reasonable request, but Andy could not, for the life of him, figure any use for the camera and lenses; and as for the receipts, that sounded to him like plain delirium.  Andy’s brain, at that time, seemed to be revolving slowly round and round like the big drying drum, and his thoughts were tangled in exasperating visions of long, narrow strips of wet film.

However, at two-thirty he drove smartly up to the little house with the camera and Luck’s brown leather bag packed with the small necessities of highly civilized journeying, and a large flat package wrapped in old newspapers.  He had not set the brake that signalled the sweating horses to stop, before Luck was in the doorway with his hat on his head and the air of one whose business is both urgent and of large issues.

“Got the receipts?  All right!  Where are the things?  This the lenses?  All right!  Put the team in the stable and go get yourself some rest.”

“Where’s your rest coming in at?” Andy flung back over his shoulder, as Luck turned away with the camera on his shoulder and the small case in his hands.

“Mine will come when I get through.  I’ve got the last reel wound and packed, though.  You bed down somewhere and sleep.  I’ll be back in a little.  I’m going to catch that four o’clock train.”

When you consider that Luck made that statement with about fifteen cents in his pocket and no ticket, you will understand why Andy gave him that queer look as he drove off to the stable.  Luck might have climbed up beside Andy and ridden part of the way, but he was too preoccupied with larger matters to think of it until he found himself picking his footing around the mud through which Andy had splashed in comfort.