A half-hour later the roisterers, who had meant to carry Constantine Jopp on a rail, carried Terry O’Ryan on their shoulders through the town, against his will. As they passed the house where Miss Mackinder lived, some one shouted:
“Are you watching the rise of Orion?”
Many a time thereafter Terry O’Ryan and Molly Mackinder looked at the galaxy in the evening sky with laughter and with pride. It had played its part with Fate against Constantine Jopp and the little widow at Jansen. It had never shone so brightly as on the night when Vigon struck oil on O’Ryan’s ranch. But Vigon had no memory of that. Such is the irony of life.
THE ERROR OF THE DAY
The “Error of the Day” may be defined as the “The difference between the distance or range which must be put upon the sights in order to hit the target and the actual distance from the gun to the target.”—Admiralty Note.
A great naval gun never fires twice alike. It varies from day to day, and expert allowance has to be made in sighting every time it is fired. Variations in atmosphere, condition of ammunition, and the wear of the gun are the contributory causes to the ever-varying “Error of the Day.”
“Say, ain’t he pretty?”
“A Jim-dandy—oh, my!”