“You’ve just got to put that shelf back, Andy.  Where do you expect me to put things?  There isn’t a pantry on the place, and only that one dinky little cupboard over there.  I can’t keep my dishes on the floor, and cooking is going to be pretty important, itself, around this camp!”

“Soon as the lumber gets here, I’ll have Andy build you a cupboard,” Luck soothed her.  “You haven’t got many conveniences here, and that’s a fact.  But we’ll get things straightened out, pronto.  Got any bones or scraps left, Mrs. Andy?  That little black dog that followed us out is here yet.  He didn’t go back with the boys.  I found him curled up in the wagon shed just now; poor little devil looks about starved.  His ribs stand out worse than a cow that’s wintered on a sheep range.”

With Rosemary’s attention diverted to the little black dog, Andy got the shelf nailed firmly upon the wall of the dark room.  And immediately Luck proceeded to use it to its fullest capacity and announced that he needed another one, whereat Andy groaned.

“Say, I’m a brave man, all right, but I don’t dare to swipe any more shelves,” he protested.  “Not from my wife, anyway.  Timber must sure be scarce in this man’s country.  I never did see a place so shy of boards as this ranch is.”

“Well, let’s see if there are any barrels,” said Luck.  “I’ve been studying on how to rig up some way to develop my film.  If we can find some half barrels and knock the heads out, I can wind the negative around them with the emulsion side out, and dip it in the bigger barrels of developer; see how I mean?  Believe me, this laboratory problem is going to be a big one till I can see my way to getting tanks and film racks out here.  But I believe barrels will work all right.  And, say!  There’s some old hose I saw out by the windmill tank; you get that, and see if you can’t run it under the house and up through a hole in the floor.  I expect it leaks in forty places, but maybe you can mend it.  And we ought to have some way to run the water out in a trough or something.  You see what you can do about that, Andy, while I go and unpack the rest of my camera outfit.  There’s a garret up over the ceiling, here, and you’ll have to see what shape it’s in for drying film.  Stop all the cracks so dust can’t blow in.  I want to start taking scenes to-morrow morning, you know.  I’ve got two hundred feet of raw stock to work with till the other gets here.  I’ve got to develop my tests before to-morrow so I’ll know what I’m doing.  I can’t afford to spoil any film.”

“Well, hardly,” Andy agreed.  “By gracious, I hope you’re making the rest of the bunch hump themselves, too.  Honest, I’d die if I saw anybody sitting around in the shade, right now!”

“Andy, did you go and take that shelf after all?” came the reproachful voice of Rosemary from the kitchen, and Luck retreated by way of the front door without telling Andy just how busy the other boys were.