“Hesty, focus the kodak carefully in order to get the entire falls in the picture,” advised Julie.
“Now, Jo, how is that possible?” exclaimed Hester. “The lens would have to be automatic and stretch way up, then down, to cover that two hundred foot fall.”
“I never heard of such an adjustment to a camera, Hessie. Where do they have them on sale?” remarked Mr. Gilroy.
Hester laughed. “I don’t know, Gilly, because no one ever patented that idea, that I know of. I was merely telling Julie that the stunt of stretching the lens was impossible.”
“You ought to know what I meant, Hester,” added Julie. “I meant for you to get the scenery across the ravine, to bring out the effect of the falling water against that green background.”
While every one had a different suggestion to make to Hester, how she ought to take the picture, the scout turned a deaf ear, but kept her eyes on the work in hand. Hence the snapshot proved to be all right. After taking a few more pictures, the scouts were about to return to the trail where the burros had been left, when Julie begged: “Oh, wait! Let Hester take one more snap, Verny.”
The others stopped and turned, and Julie caught hold of Hester’s arm. “Come over here, Hessie, and wait till I say ‘ready!’ I’m going to be in this picture, all right, because I want to develop it and mail it home.”
As she was speaking Julie led Hester to a spot and showed her just what she was to do after she, Julie, was posed and ready.
“That beautiful hanging tree all draped with creepers, see it—right on the verge of the cliff? I’ll lean against it gracefully, as if I was leaning over to look down into the chasm, and then you push the button. You’ll get the falls as a background, and everything.”
Hester understood perfectly, so Julie rushed over to the crooked, leaning pine, half-dead, but draped as the scout had said, with long swinging tendrils of vines.