worn it that way. He wore his sheriffs
badge pinned on his vest and his coat unbuttoned, so that the wind blew
it open now and then and revealed the star. Altogether he looked exactly
as he had looked when he was serving one of his four terms of office. But
when he faced the camera, he was inclined to strut, and Luck had no
negative to waste. He resorted to strategy, which consisted of a little
wholesome sarcasm.

"Listen, Applehead! the public is going to get the idea that you sure
hate yourself!" he remarked, standing with his hands on his hips while
Applehead came strutting into the foreground. "You'll never make any one
believe you were ever a real, honest-to-God sheriff. They'll put you down
as an extra picked up through a free employment agency and feeling like
you owned the plant because you're earning a couple of dollars. Go back
down there to your horse and wait till some of that importance
evaporates!"

Applehead went off swearing to himself, and Luck got a fifteen-foot
scene of the departure of a very indignant sheriff who is with
difficulty holding his anger subordinate to his official dignity. Before
he had time to recover his usual good humor, Luck with further
disparaging comment called him back. Applehead, smarting under the
sarcasm, came ready for war, and Luck turned the crank until the sheriff
was almost within reach of him.

"Gol darn you, Luck, I'll take that there camery and bust it over your
danged head!" he spluttered. "I'll show ye! Call me a bum that's wearin'
a shurf's star fer the first time in his life, will ye! Why, I'll jest
about wear ye out if--"

"All right, pard; I was just aiming to make you come up looking mad. You
did fine." Luck stopped to roll a smoke as though nothing had occurred
but tiresome routine.

Applehead looked down at him uncertainly. He looked at the Happy Family,
saw them grinning, and gave a mollified chuckle. "We-ell, you was takin'
a danged long chance, now I'm tellin' yuh, boy!" he warned. "I was all
set to tangle with yuh; and if I had, I reckon I'd a spiled something
'fore I got through."

It was noon by the sun, and a film of haze was spreading across the sky.
Luck shot another scene or two and shouldered his precious camera
reluctantly, when Rosemary, red-lidded but elaborately cheerful in her
manner, called them in to dinner.

"She's goin' to storm, shore's you live," Applehead predicted, sniffing
into the wind like a dog confronted by a strange sce