“No, there’s no law against it.”  Luck closed his lips against further comment.  The idea was like a sudden blow upon the door of his imagination.

The Happy Family looked at one another inquiringly.  They had never thought of doing anything like that.  The dried little man may have meditated much upon the subject, but he certainly had not given a hint of it to any of them.

“Oh, why couldn’t you boys do that?” Rosemary exclaimed breathlessly.

Luck stirred his coffee carefully and did not look up.  “Don’t run away with the idea that you can buy a camera for twenty or thirty dollars,” he quelled.  “A camera, complete with tripod, lenses, magazines, and cases, would cost about fourteen hundred dollars—­at least.”

That, as he had expected it to do, rather feazed the Happy Family for a few minutes.  They became interested in the food they were eating, and their eyes did not stray far from their plates.

“I can ante two hundred,” Weary remarked at last with elaborate carelessness, reaching for more butter.

“See yuh and raise yuh fifty,” Andy Green retorted briskly.  “I’ve got a wife that’s learning me to save money.”

“You can count my chips for all I got.”  Pink’s dimples showed briefly.  “I’ll go through my pockets when I get filled up, and see how rich I am.  But, anyway, there’s a couple of hundred I know I’ve got,—­counting Acme handouts and all.”

“We-ell—­” the dried little man laid down his fork to rub his chin thoughtfully, “I never had much call to spend money in Sioux, North-Dakoty.  I batched and lived savin’.  I can put in half of that fourteen hundred—­mebby a little mite more.”

“Well, by cripes, I got a boy t’ look out fer, and I ain’t rich as some, but all I got goes in the pot!” cried Big Medicine impulsively.

Luck leaned back in his chair and regarded the flushed faces enigmatically.  “This is all good material for an argument on our financial standing,” he said, “but if you’re taking yourselves seriously, let me tell you something before you go any farther.  Buying a camera is only a starter.  Besides, I wouldn’t play with little stuff and compete with these big, established companies releasing on regular programs.  Say, for the sake of argument, that we cooperate and go into this; all I’d handle would be features,—­State’s rights stuff. (Make big four-or-five reelers, and sell the rights in as many States as possible; that’s what it amounts to.) But it isn’t a thing to play with, boys.  Let’s do our joking about something else.”

Rosemary set her two elbows upon the table, clasped her hands together, and dropped her chin upon them so that she was looking at Luck from under her eyebrows.  That pose meant determination and an argumentative mood.

“I’ve been doing a little mental arithmetic,” she began.  “Also I’ve done a little thinking.  I know now what spoiled that Great Western offer for you, Luck Lindsay.  It was because they wouldn’t take the boys too.  And you turned it down because you—­oh, they’re the ‘technical details,’ young man!  You see?  Your eyes give you away.  I knew it, once the idea popped into my head.  What do you think of a fellow like that, boys?  Refused a two-hundred-a-week position because he couldn’t get you fellows a job too.”