Chapter 11

JUST A FEW UNFORESEEN OBSTACLES

It is surprising how much time is consumed by the little things of life,--unimportant in themselves, yet absolutely necessary to a satisfactory accomplishment of the big things. Luck, looking ahead into the next day, confidently expected to be making scenes by the time the light was right,--say nine o'clock in the morning. He had chosen several short, unimportant scenes, such as the departure of old Dave Wiswell, his cattleman of the picture, from the ranch; his return, and the saddling of horses and riding away of the boys. Also he meant to make a scene of the arrival of the sheriff after having received word of the presence of Big Medicine, the outlaw, at the ranch. Rosemary, too, as the daughter of old Dave, must run down to the corral to meet her father. Scattered scenes they were, occurring in widely separated parts of the story. But they had to be made, and they required no especial "sets" of scenery; and other work, such as the building of the stage for interior sets, could go on with few interruptions. The boys would have to work in their make-up, but since the make-up was to be nothing more than a sharpening of the features to make them look absolutely natural upon the screen, it would not be uncomfortable. This was what Luck had planned for that day.

Before breakfast he had selected a site for his stage, on the sunny side of the hill back of the house, where it would be partially sheltered from the sweeping winds of New Mexico. All day he would have the sun behind him while he worked, and he considered the situation an ideal one. He had the lumber hauled up there and unloaded, while Rosemary and Applehead were cooking breakfast for ten hungry people. He laid out his foundation and explained to the boys just how it should be built, and even sacrificed his appetite to his impatience by going a quarter of a mile to where he remembered seeing some old barbed wire strung along a fence to keep it off the ground so that stock could not tangle in it. He got the wire and brought it back with him to guy out the uprights for the diffusers. So on the whole he began the day as well as even he could desire.

Then little hindrances began to creep in to delay him. For one thing, the Happy Family had only a comedy acquaintance with grease paint, and their make-up reminded Luck unpleasantly of Bently Brown's stories. As they appeared one by one, with their comically crooked eyebrows and their rouge-widened lips and staring, deep-shadowed eyes, Luck sent them back to take it all off and start over again under his supervision. The outcome was that he gave a full hour to making up the faces of his characters and telling them how to do it themselves. Even Rosemary made her brows too heavy and her lips too red, and her cheeks were flushed unevenly. Luck was a busy man that morning, but he was not taking scenes by nine o'clock, for all his haste.

With a kindly regard for