Milton looked long at Enoch's tired face; then he lifted himself on one elbow.
"All right, Judge, I'm through belly-aching! We'll put it through somehow and if I have decent luck, early Spring will see me right here, beginning where I left off. After all, Powell had to take two trials at it."
"That's more like you, Milton! Is that dawn breaking yonder?"
"Yes," replied Milton. "Keep your ear and eye out for any sort of critters in this little spot, Judge."
But, though Enoch, and the others, when he had roused them, beat the tiny blind alley thoroughly, not so much as a cottontail reward their efforts.
"Curious!" grumbled Enoch, "up at Mack's camp where we really needed nothing, I found all the game in the world. The perversity of nature is incomprehensible. Even the fish have left this part of the river," as Jonas with a sigh of discouragement tossed his improvised fishing tackle into the fire.
Agnew pulled his belt a notch tighter. His brown face was beginning to look sagged and lined. "Well," cheerfully, "there are some advantages in being fat. I've still several days to go before I reach your's and Jonas' state of slats, Judge."
"Don't get sot up about it, Ag," returned Enoch. "You look a good deal like a collapsed balloon, you know! Shall we launch the good ship Ida, fellows?"
"She ain't anything to what the Na-che was," sighed Jonas, "but she's pretty good at that. If I ain't too tired, to-night, I may clean her up a little."
Even Milton joined in the laughter at this and the day's journey was begun with great good humor.
It was the easiest day's course that had been experienced since Enoch had joined the expedition. There were three rapids during the day but they rode these with no difficulties. Enoch and Jonas rowed fairly steadily in the morning, but in the afternoon, they spelled each other. The light rations were making themselves felt. The going was so smooth that dusk was upon them before they made camp. Milton had been wretchedly sick, all day, but he made no complaint and forced down the handful of boiled beans and the tin cup of pale coffee that was his share of each meal.
They made camp languidly. Enoch found the task of piling fire wood arduous and as the camp was in dry sand and the blankets had dried out during the day, they did not attempt the usual great blaze. Jonas insisted on acting as night nurse for Milton, and Enoch was asleep before he had more then swallowed his supper. He had bad dreams and woke with a dull headache, and wondered if Jonas and Agnew felt as weak and light-headed as he did. But although both the men moved about slowly and Jonas made no attempt to clean up the Ida, they uttered no complaints. Milton was feeling a little better. Before the day's journey was begun, he and Agnew plotted their position on the map.
"Well, does to-morrow see us at the Ferry?" asked Enoch, cheerfully, when Agnew put up his pencil with an abstracted air.
"No, Judge," sighed Milton, "that rotten first day after the wreck, cost us a good many miles. I thought we'd make up for it, yesterday. But we're a full day behind."
"That is," exclaimed Enoch, "we must take that grub pile and redivide it, stretching it over three days instead of two!"
"Yes," replied Milton, grimly.
"Jove, Agnew, you're going to be positively fairy like, before we're through with this," said Enoch. "Jonas, get out the grub supply, will you?"
Jonas, standing on a rock that projected over the water, did not respond. He was watching eagerly as his new fishline of ravelled rope pulled taut in the stream. Suddenly he gave a roar and jerked the line so violently that the fish landed on Milton's blanket.
"Must weigh two pounds!" cried Agnew.
"You start her broiling, Mr. Agnew!" shouted Jonas, "while I keep on a-fishing."
"What changed your luck, Jonas?" asked Enoch. "You're using beans and bent wire, just as you did yesterday."
"Aha! not just as I did yesterday, boss! This time I tied Na-che's charm just above the hook. No fish could stand that, once they got an eye on it."
But evidently no second fish cast an eye on the irresistible charm, and Enoch was unwilling to wait for further luck longer than was necessary to cook the fish and eat it. But during the day Jonas trolled whenever the water made trolling possible, hopefully spitting on the hook each time he cast it over, casting always from the right hand and muttering Fish! Fish! Fish! three times for each venture. Yet no other fish responded to Na-che's charm that day.
But the river treated them kindly. If their strength had been equal to hard and steady rowing they might have made up for the lost miles. As it was they knocked off at night with just the number of miles for the day that Milton had planned on in the beginning, and were still a day behind their schedule. Milton grew no worse, though he was weaker and obviously a very sick man. A light snow fell during the night but the next morning was clear and invigorating.
They encountered two difficult rapids on the fourth day. The first one they portaged. The trail was not difficult but in their weakened condition the boat and poor Milton were heavy burdens and it took them three times as long to accomplish the portage as it would have taken had they been in normal condition. The second rapids, they shot easily in the afternoon. The waves were high and every one was saturated with the icy water. Enoch dared not risk Milton's remaining wet and as soon as they found a likely place for the camp they went ashore. The huge pile of drift wood had helped them to decide on this rather unhospitable ledge for what they hoped would be their last night out.
They kindled a big fire and sat about it, steaming and silent, but with the feeling that the worst was behind them.
They rose in a cold driving rain the next morning, ate the last of the beans, drank the last of the coffee, covered Milton as well as could be with blankets and launched the boat. It was a day of unspeakable misery. They made one portage, and one let down, and dragged the boat with almost impossible labor over a long series of shallows. By mid-afternoon they had made up their minds to another night of wretchedness and Agnew was beginning to watch for a camping place, when suddenly he exclaimed,
"Fellows, there's the Ferry!"
"How do you know?" demanded Enoch.
"I've been here before, Judge. Yes, by Jove, there's old Grant's cabin. I wonder if any one's reached here yet!"
"Well, Milton, old man, here's thanks and congratulations," cried Enoch.
"You'd better thank the Almighty," returned Milton. "I certainly had very little to do with our getting here."
The rain had prevented Agnew's recognizing their haven until they were fairly upon it. Even now all that Enoch could see was a wide lateral canyon with a rough unpainted shack above the waterline. A group of cottonwoods loomed dimly through the mist beside a fence that surrounded the house.
Jonas, who had seemed overcome with joy at Agnew's announcement, recovered his power of speech by the time the boat was headed shoreward and he raised a shout that echoed from wall to wall.
"Na-che! Ohee, Na-che! Here we are, Na-che!"
Agnew opened his lips to comment, but before he uttered the first syllable there rose a shrill, clear call from the mists.
"Jonas! Ohee, Jonas!"
Enoch's pulse leaped. With sudden strength, he bent to his oars, and the Ida slid softly upon the sandy shore. As she did so, two figures came running through the rain.
"Diana!" cried Enoch, making no attempt for a moment to step from the boat.
"Oh, what has happened!" exclaimed Diana, putting a hand under Milton's head as he struggled to raise it.
"Just a broken leg, Miss Allen," he said, his parched lips parting in a smile. "Have Forr and Hard turned up?"
"No! And Curly and Mack aren't here, either! O you poor things! Here, let me help! Na-che, take hold of this stretcher, there, on the other side with the Judge and Jonas. Finished short of grub, didn't you! Let's bring Mr. Milton right up to the cabin."
The cabin consisted of but one room with an adobe fireplace at one end and bunks on two sides. There was a warm glow of fire and the smell of meat cooking. They laid Milton tenderly on a bunk and as they did so Jonas gave a great sob:
"Welcome home, I say, boss, welcome home!"
CHAPTER XIII
GRANT'S CROSSING
"Perfect memories! They are more precious than hope, more priceless than dreams of the future."—Enoch's Diary.
"Now, every one of you get into dry clothes as quickly as you can," said Diana. "No! Don't one of you try to stir from the cabin! Come, Na-che, we'll bring the men's bags up and go out to our tent while they shift."
The two women were gone before the men could protest. They were back with the bags in a few moments and in almost less time than it takes to tell, the crew of the Ida was reclothed, Enoch in the riding suit that Jonas had left with some of his own clothes in Na-che's care. When this was done, Na-che put on the coffee pot, while Diana served each of them with a plate of hot rabbit stew.
"Don't try to talk," she said, "until you get this down. You'd better help Mr. Milton, Na-che. Here, it will take two of us. Oh, you poor dear! You're burning with fever."
"Don't you worry about me," protested Milton, weakly, as, with his head resting on Diana's arm, he sipped the teaspoonsful of stew Na-che fed him. "This is as near heaven as I want to get."
"I should hope so!" grunted Agnew. "Jonas, don't ever try to put up a stew in competition with Na-che again."
"Not me, sir!" chuckled Jonas. "That gal can sure cook!"
"And make charms," added Enoch. "Don't fail to realize that you're still alive, Jonas."
"I'm going to bathe Mr. Milton's face for him," said Na-che, with a fine air of indifference. "I can set a broken leg, too."
"It's set," said Agnew and Enoch together, "but," added Enoch, "that isn't saying that Milton mustn't be gotten to a doctor with all speed."
Diana nodded. "Where are Mr. Forrester and Mr. Harden?" she asked.
"We lost the Na-che—" said Agnew.
"The what?" demanded Diana.
"Jonas rechristened the Mary, the Na-che," Agnew replied. "We lost her in a whirlpool six days back. Most of the food was in her. Two of us had to go out and Harden and Forrester volunteered. We are very much worried about them."
"And when did Mr. Milton break his leg?"
"On that same black day! The water's been disagreeing with him, making him dizzy, and he took a header from the Ida, after rescuing Forrester from some rapids," said Enoch.
"Doesn't sound much, when you tell it, does it!" Agnew smiled as he sighed. "But it really has been quite a busy five days."
"One can look at your faces and read much between the lines," said Diana, quietly. "Now, while Na-che works with Mr. Milton, I'm going to give you each some coffee."
"Diana, how far are we from the nearest doctor?" asked Enoch.
"There's one over on the Navajo reservation," replied Diana.
"Wouldn't it be better to keep Milton right here and one of us go for the doctor?"
"Much better," agreed Diana and Agnew.
"Lord," sighed Milton, "what bliss!"
"Then," said Enoch, "I'm going to start for the doctor, now."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Diana, "that's my job. We've been here two days and we and our outfit are as fresh as daisies."
"I'm going, myself," Agnew rose as firmly as his weak and weary legs would permit.
It was Na-che who settled the matter. "That's an Indian's job," she said. "You take care of Mr. Milton, Diana, while I go."
"That's sensible," agreed Diana. "Start now, Na-che. You should reach
Wilson's by to-morrow night and telephone to the Agent's house.
That'll save you forty miles."
Jonas' face which had fallen greatly suddenly brightened. "Somebody's coming!" he cried. "I hope it's our folks!"
The door opened abruptly and in walked Curly and Mack.
"Here's the whole family!" exclaimed Curly. "Well, if you folks don't look like Siberian convicts, whiskers and all! Some trip, eh?"
Mack, shaking hands all round, stopped beside Milton's bunk. "What went wrong, bud? and where's the rest of the bunch?"
Enoch told the story, this time. Mack shook his head as the final plans were outlined.
"Na-che had better stay and nurse Milton. I'm feeling fine. We just loafed along down here. I'll start out right away. I should reach Wilson's to-morrow night, as you say, and telephone the doctor. Then I'll load up with grub at Wilson's and turn back. Do you find much game round here?"
Diana nodded. "Plenty of rabbit and quail, and we have some bacon and coffee."
"I guess I'd better go out and look for the two foot-passengers," suggested Curly. "I'll stay out to-night and report to-morrow evening."
"We'll be in shape by morning to start on the search," said Enoch.
Curly turned to his former cook with a grin. "Well, Judge, is your little vacation giving you the rest you wanted?"
Enoch, gaunt, unshaven, exhausted, his blue eyes blood-shot, nodded contentedly. "I'm having the time of my life, Curly."
"I had a bull dog once," said Curly. "If I'd take a barrel stave and pound him with it, saying all the time, 'Nice doggie, isn't this fun! Isn't this a nice little stick! Don't you like these little love pats?' he'd wag his tail and slobber and tell me how much he enjoyed it and beg for more. But, if I took a straw and tapped him with it, telling him he was a poor dog, that nobody loved him, that I was breaking his ribs which he richly deserved, why that bull pup nearly died of suffering of body and anguish of mind."
Enoch shook his head sadly. "A great evangelist was lost when you took to placer mining, Curly."
Mack had been talking quietly to Milton. "I don't believe it was the river water, that upset you. I think you have drunk from some poison spring. I did that once, up in this country, and it took me six months to get over it, because I couldn't get to a doctor. But I believe a doctor could fix you right up. Do you recall drinking water the other men didn't?"
"Any number of times, on exploring trips to the river!" Milton looked immensely cheered. "I think you may be right, Mack."
"I'll bet you two bits that's all that ails you, son!" Mack rose from the edge of the bunk. "Well, folks, I'm off! Look for me when you see me!"
"I'll mooch along too," Curly rose and stretched himself.
"I'm not going to try to thank all you folks!" Milton's weak voice was husky.
"That's what us Arizonians always wait for before we do the decent thing," said Mack, with a smile. "Come along, Curly, you lazy chuckawalla you!" And the door slammed behind them.
"They're stem winders, both of them!" exclaimed Agnew.
"Diana," said Enoch, "I wish you'd sit down. You've done enough for us."
Diana smiled and shook her head. "I struck the camp first, so I'm boss. Na-che and I are going out to see that everything's all right for the night and that Mack and Curly get a good start. While we're out, you're all going to bed. Then Na-che is coming in to make Mr. Milton as comfortable as she can. Our tent is under the cottonwoods and if you want anything during the night, Mr. Milton, all you have to do is to call through the window. Neither of us will undress so we can be on duty, instantly. There is plenty of stew still simmering in the pot, and cold biscuit on the table. Good night, all of you."
"Na-che, she don't need to bother. I'll look out for Mr. Milton," said
Jonas, suddenly rousing from his chair where he had been dozing.
"You go to bed and to sleep, Jonas," ordered Diana. "Good night,
Judge."
"Good night, Diana!"
The door closed softly and Diana was seen no more that night. The rain ceased at midnight and the stars shone forth clear and cold, but Milton was the only person in the camp to be conscious of the fact. Just as the dawn wind was rising, though, and the cottonwoods were outlining themselves against the eastern sky, stumbling footsteps near the tent wakened both Diana and Na-che, and they opened the tent flap, hastily.
Forrester was clinging to a cottonwood tree. At least it was a worn, bleached, ragged counterfeit of Forrester.
"Hard's back on the trail apiece. I came on for help," he said huskily.
"Is he sick or hurt?" cried Diana.
"No, just all in."
"I'll take a horse for him, right off," said Na-che. "You help Mr.
Forrester into the house, Diana."
"Call Jonas!" said Diana, supporting Forrester against the tree. "One of the men had better go for Mr. Harden."
"Then they got here!" exclaimed Forrester. "Thank God! How's Milton?
Any other accident?"
"Everything's all right! Here they all come!" For Jonas, then Agnew and Enoch were rushing from the door and amid the hubbub of exclamations, Forrester was landed in a bunk while Agnew started up the trail indicated by Forrester. But he hardly had set out before he met Curly, leading his horse with Harden clinging to the saddle. Both the wanderers were fed and put to bed and told to sleep, before they tried to tell their story. The day was warm and clear and Na-che and Jonas prepared breakfast outside, serving it on the rough table, under the cottonwoods. Enoch and Agnew, washed and shaved, were new men, though still weak, Enoch, particularly, being muscle sore and weary. Harden and Forrester woke for more food, at noon, then slept again. Milton dozed and woke, drank feverishly of the water brought from the spring near the cabin, and gazed with a look of complete satisfaction on the unshaved dirty faces in the bunks across the room.
Agnew and Curly played poker all day long. Jonas and Na-che found endless small tasks around the camp that required long consultations between them and much laughter. When Enoch returned after breakfast from a languid inspection of the Ida, Diana was not to be seen. She had gone out to get some quail, Na-che said. She returned in an hour or so, with a good bag of rabbit and birds.
"To-morrow, that will be my job," said Enoch.
"If she wouldn't let me go, she mustn't let you!" called Curly, from his poker game, under the trees.
"Yes, I'll let any of you take it over, to-morrow," replied Diana, giving Na-che gun and bag. "To-morrow, Na-che and I turn the rescue mission over to you men and start for Bright Angel."
"Oh, where's your heart, Miss Allen!" cried Agnew. "Aren't you going to wait to learn what the doctor says about Milton?"
"And Diana," urged Enoch, "Jonas and I want to go up to Bright Angel with you and Na-che. Won't you wait a day longer, just till we're a little more fit?"
Diana, in her worn corduroy habit, her soft hat pulled well over her
great eyes, looked from Agnew to Enoch, smiled and did not reply.
Enoch waited impatiently without the door while she made a call on
Milton.
"Diana!" he exclaimed, when she came out, "aren't you going to talk to me even? Do come down by the Ida and see if we can't be rid of this horde of people for a while."
"I've been wanting to see just how badly you'd treated the poor old boat," said Diana, following Enoch toward the shore.
But Enoch had not the slightest intention of holding an inquest on the
Ida. In the shade of a gnarled cedar to which the boat was tied as a
precaution against high water, he had placed a box. Thither he led
Diana.
"Do sit down, Diana, and let me sit here at your feet. I'll admit it should be unexpected joy enough just to find you here. But I'm greedy. I want you to myself, and I want to tell you a thousand things."
"All right, Judge, begin," returned Diana amiably, as she clasped her knee with both hands and smiled at him. But Enoch could not begin, immediately. Sitting in the sand with his back against the cedar he looked out at the Colorado flowing so placidly, at the pale gray green of the far canyon walls and a sense of all that the river signified to him, all that it had brought to him, all that it would mean to him to leave it and with it Diana,—Diana who had been his other self since he was a lad of eighteen,—made him speechless for a time.
Diana waited, patiently. At last, Enoch turned to her, "All the things
I want to say most, can't be said, Diana!"
"Are you glad you took the trip down the river, Judge?"
"Glad! Was Roland glad he made his adventure in search of the Dark
Tower?"
"Yes, he was, only, Judge—"
Enoch interrupted. "Has our friendship grown less since we camped at the placer mine?"
Diana flushed slightly and went on, "Only, Enoch, surely the end of your adventure is not a Dark Tower ending!"
"Yes, it is, Diana! It can never be any other." Enoch's fingers trembled a little as he toyed with his pipe bowl. Diana slowly looked away from him, her eyes fastening themselves on a buzzard that circled over the peaks across the river. After a moment, she said, "Then you are going to shoot Brown?"
Enoch started a little. "I'm not thinking of Brown just now. I'm thinking of you and me."
He paused again and again Diana waited until she felt the silence becoming too painful. Then she said,
"Aren't you going to tell me some of the details of your trip?"
"I want to, Diana, but hang it, words fail me! It was as you warned me, an hourly struggle with death. And we fought, I think, not because life was so unutterably sweet to any of us, but because there was such wonderful zest to the fighting. The beauty of the Canyon, the awfulness of it, the unbelievable rapidity with which event piled on event. Why, Diana, I feel as if I'd lived a lifetime since I first put foot on the Ida! And the glory of the battle! Diana, we were so puny, so insignificant, so stupid, and the Canyon was so colossal and so diabolically quick and clever! What a fight!"
Enoch laughed joyfully.
"You're a new man!" said Diana, softly.
Enoch nodded. "And now I'm to have the ride back to El Tovar with you and the trip down Bright Angel with you and your father! For once Diana, Fate is minding her own business and letting me mind mine."
Jonas approached hesitatingly. "Na-che said I had to tell you, boss, though I didn't want to disturb you, she said I had to though she wouldn't do it herself. Dinner is on the table. And you know, boss, you ain't like you was when a bowl of cereal would do you."
"I shouldn't have tempted fate, Diana!" Enoch sighed, as he rose and followed her to the cottonwood.
Try as he would, during the afternoon, he could not bring about another tête-a-tête with Diana. Finally as dusk drew near, he threw himself down, under the cedar tree, his eyes sadly watching the evening mists rise over the river. His dark figure merged with the shadow of the cedar and Na-che and Jonas, establishing themselves on the gunwale of the Ida for one of their confidential chats did not perceive him. He himself gave them no heed until he heard Jonas say vehemently:
"You're crazy, Na-che! I'm telling you the boss won't never marry."
"How do you know what's in your boss's mind?" demanded Na-che.
"I know all right. And I know he thinks a lot of Miss Diana, too, but
I know he won't marry her. He won't marry anybody."
"But why?" urged the Indian woman, sadly, "Why should things be so wrong? When he loves her and she loves him and they were made for each other!"
"How come you to think she loves him?" demanded Jonas.
"Don't I know the mind of my Diana? Isn't she my little child, even if her mother did bear her. Don't I see her kiss that little picture she has of him in her locket every night when she says her prayers?"
"Well—" began Jonas, but he was interrupted by a call from Curly.
"Whoever's minding the stew might be interested in knowing that it's boiling over!"
"Coming! Coming!" cried Jonas and Na-che.
Darkness had now settled on the river. Enoch lay motionless until they called him in to supper. When he entered the cabin where the table was set, Curly cried, "Hello, Judge! Where've you been? I swear you look as if you'd been walking with a ghost."
"Perhaps I have," Enoch replied, grimly, as he took his seat.
Harden and Forrester, none too energetic, but shaven and in order, were at the table, where their story was eagerly picked from them.
Forrester had slept the first night in the cavern Enoch had noted. Harden never even saw the cavern but had spent the night crawling steadily toward the rim. At dawn, Forrester had made his way to the top of the butte by the same route Enoch had followed, and had seen Harden, a black speck moving laboriously on the southern horizon. He had not recognized him, and set out to overtake him. It was not until noon that he had done so. Even after he realized whom he was pursuing, he had not given up, for by that time he was rueing bitterly his hasty and ill-equipped departure.
None of the auditors of the two men needed detailed description either of the ardors of that trip nor of the embarrassment of the meeting. Nor did Forrester or Harden attempt any. After they had met they tried to keep a course that moved southwest. There were no trails. For endless miles, fissures and buttes, precipices to be scaled, mountains to be climbed, canyons to be crossed. For one day they were without water, but the morning following they found a pot hole, full of water. Weakness from lack of food added much to the peril of the trip, one cottontail being the sole contribution of the gun to their larder. They did not strike the trail until the day previous to their arrival in the camp.
"Have you had enough desert to last you the rest of your life?" asked
Curly as Harden ended the tale.
"Not I!" said Forrester, "nor Canyon either! I'm going to find some method of getting Milt to let me finish the trip with him."
"Me too," added Harden.
"How much quarreling did you do?" asked Milton, abruptly, from the bunk.
Neither man answered for a moment, then Forrester, flushing deeply, said, "All we ask of you, Milt, is to give us a trial. Set us ashore if you aren't satisfied with us."
Milton grunted and Diana said, quickly, "What are you people going to do until Mr. Milton gets well?"
All of the crew looked toward the leader's bunk. "Wait till we get the doctor's report," said Milton. "Hard, you were going to show Curly a placer claim around here, weren't you?"
"Yes, if I can be spared for a couple of days. We can undertake that, day after to-morrow."
"You're on!" exclaimed Curly. "Judge, don't forget you and I are due to have a little conversation before we separate."
"I haven't forgotten it," replied Enoch.
"Sometime to-morrow then. To-night I've got to get my revenge on Agnew. He's a wild cat, that's what he is. Must have been born in a gambling den. Sit in with us, Judge or anybody!"
"Not I," said Enoch, shortly.
"Still disapprove, don't you, Judge!" gibed Curly. "How about the rest of you? Diana, can you play poker?"
"Thanks, Curly! My early education in that line was neglected." Diana smiled and turned to Enoch. "Judge, do you think you'll feel up to starting to-morrow afternoon? There's a spring five miles west that we could make if we leave here at two o'clock and I'd like to feel that I'd at least made a start, to-morrow. My father is going to be very much worried about me. I'm nearly a week overdue, now."
"I'll be ready whenever you are, Diana. How about you, Jonas?"
"I'm always on hand, boss. Mr. Milton, can I have the broken oar blade we kept to patch the Ida with?"
"What do you want it for, Jonas?" asked Milton.
"I'm going to have it framed. And Mr. Harden and Mr. Agnew, don't forget those fillums!"
"Lucky for you the films were stored in the Ida, Jonas!" exclaimed Agnew. "I'll develop some of those in the morning, and see what sort of a show you put up."
Diana rose. "Well, good night to you all! Mr. Milton, is there anything Na-che or I can do for you?"
"No, thank you, Miss Allen, I think I'm in good hands."
Enoch rose to open the door for Diana. "Thank you, Judge," she said,
"Good night!"
"Diana," said Enoch, under cover of the conversation at the table, "before we start to-morrow, will you give me half an hour alone with you?"
There was pain and determination both in Enoch's voice. Diana glanced at him a little anxiously as she answered, "Yes, I will, Enoch."
"Good night, Diana," and Enoch retired to his bunk, where he lay wide awake long after the card game was ended and the room in darkness save for the dull glow of the fire.
He made no attempt the next day to obtain the half hour Diana had promised him. He helped Jonas with their meager preparations for the trip, then took a gun and started along the trail which led up the Ferry canyon to the desert. But he had not gone a hundred yards, when Diana called.
"Wait a moment, Judge! I'll go with you."
She joined him shortly with her gun and game bag. "We'll have Na-che cook us a day's supply of meat before we start," she said. "The hunting is apt to be poor on the trail we're to take home."
Enoch nodded but said nothing. Something of the old grim look was in his eyes again. He paused at the point where the canyon gave place to the desert. Here a gnarled mesquite tree and an old half-buried log beneath it, offered mute evidence of a gigantic flooding of the river.
"Let's sit here for a little while, Diana," he said.
They put their guns against the mesquite tree and sat down facing the distant river.
"Diana," Enoch began abruptly, "in spite of what your father and John Seaton believed and wanted me to believe, the things that the Brown papers said about my mother are true. Only, Brown did not tell all. He did not give the details of her death. I suppose even Luigi hesitated to tell that because I almost beat him to death the last time he tried it.
"Seaton and I never talked much about the matter. He tried to ferret out facts, but had no luck. By the time I was seventeen or eighteen I realized that no man with a mother like mine had a right to marry. But I missed the friendship of women, I suppose, for when I was perhaps eighteen or nineteen I made a discovery. I found that somewhere in my heart I was carrying the image of a girl, a slender girl, with braids of light brown hair wrapped round her head, a girl with the largest, most intelligent, most tender gray eyes in the world, and a lovely curving mouth, with deep corners. I named her Lucy, because I'd been reading Wordsworth and I began to keep a diary to her. I've kept it ever since.
"You can have no idea, how real, how vivid, how vital a part of my life Lucy became to me. She was in the very deepest truth my better self, for years. And then this summer, a miracle occurred! Lucy walked into my office! Beauty, serenity, intelligence, sweetness, gaiety, and gallantry—these were Lucy's in the flesh as I could not even dream for Lucy of the spirit. Only in one particular though had I made an actual error. Her name was not Lucy, it was Diana! Diana! the little girl of Bright Angel who had entered my turbulent boyish heart, all unknown to me, never to leave it! . . . Diana! Lucy! I love you and God help me, I must not marry!"
Enoch, his nails cutting deep into his palms turned from the river, at which he had been staring steadily while speaking, to Diana. Her eyes which had been fastened on Enoch's profile, now gazed deep into his, pain speaking to pain, agony to agony.
"If," Enoch went on, huskily, "there is no probability of your growing to care for me, then I think our friendship can endure. I can crowd back the lover and be merely your friend. But if you might grow to care, even ever so little, then, I think at the thought of your pain, my heart would break. So, I thought before it is too late—"
Suddenly Diana's lips which had grown white, trembled a little. "It is too late!" she whispered. "It is too late!" and she put her slender, sunburned hands over her face.
"Don't! Oh, don't!" groaned Enoch. He took her hands down, gently. Diana's eyes were dry. Her cheeks were burning. Enoch looked at her steadily, his breath coming a little quickly, then he rose and with both her hands in his lifted her to her feet.
"Do you love me, Diana?" he whispered.
She looked up into his eyes. "Yes, Enoch! Oh, yes!" she answered, brokenly.
"How much do you love me, dear?" he persisted.
She smiled with a tragic beauty in droop of lips and anguish of eyes.
"With all there is in me to give to love, Enoch."
"Then," said Enoch, "this at least may be mine," and he laid his lips to hers.
When he lifted his head, he smoothed her hair back from her face. "Remember, I am not deceiving myself, Diana," he said huskily. "I have acted like a selfish, unprincipled brute. If I had not, in Washington, let you see that I cared, you would have escaped all this."
"I did not want to escape it, Enoch," she said, smiling again while her lips quivered. "Yet I thought I would have strength enough to go away, without permitting you to tell me about it. But I was not strong enough. However," stepping away from Enoch, "now we both understand, and I'll go home. And we must never see each other again, Enoch."
"Never see each other again!" he repeated. Then his voice deepened. "Go about our day's work year after year, without even a memory to ease the gnawing pain. God, Diana, do you think we are machines to be driven at will?"
Diana drew a long breath and her voice was very steady as she answered. "Don't let's lose our grip on ourselves, Enoch. It only makes a hard situation harder. Now that we understand each other, let us kiss the cross, and go on."
Enoch, arms folded on his chest, great head bowed, walked up and down under the trees slowly for a moment. When he paused before her, it was to speak with his customary calm and decision, though his eyes smoldered.
"Diana, I want to take the trip with you, just as we planned, and go down Bright Angel with your father and you. I want those few days in the desert with you to carry me through the rest of my life. You need not fear, dear, that for one moment I will lose grip on myself."
Diana looked at him as if she never had seen him before. She looked at the gaunt, strong features, the massive chin, the sensitive, firm mouth, the lines of self-control and purposefulness around eyes and lips, and over all the deep-seated sadness that made Enoch's face unforgettable. Slowly she turned from him to the desert, and after a moment, as if she had gathered strength from the far horizon, she answered him, still with the little note of steadiness in her voice:
"I think we'll have to have those last few days, together, Enoch."
Enoch heaved a deep sigh then smiled, brilliantly. "And now," he said, "I dare not go back to camp without at least discharging my gun, do you?"
"No, Judge!" replied Diana, picking up her gun, with a little laugh.
"Don't call me Judge, when we're alone!" protested Enoch.
Diana with something sweeter than tenderness shining in her great eyes, touched his hand softly with hers.
"No, dear!" she whispered.
Enoch looked at her, drew a deep breath, then put his gun across his arm and followed Diana to the yucca thicket where quail was to be found. They were very silent during the hour of hunting. They bagged a pair of cottontails and a number of quail, and when they did speak, it was only regarding the hunt or the preparations for the coming exodus. They reached camp, just before dinner, Diana disappearing into the tent, and Enoch tramping prosaically and wearily into the cabin to throw himself down on his bunk. He had not yet recovered from the last days in the Canyon.
"You shouldn't have tackled that tramp this morning, Judge," said
Milton. "You should have saved yourself for this afternoon."
"You saw who his side pardner was, didn't you?" asked Curly.
"Yes," replied Milton, grinning.
"Then why make foolish comments?"
"I am a fool!" agreed Milton.
"Judge," asked Curly, "how about you and me having our conflab right after dinner?"
"That will suit me," replied Enoch, "if you can drag yourself from
Agnew and poker that long."
"I'll make a superhuman effort," returned Curly.
The conference, which took place under the cedar near the Ida, did not last long.
"Curly," said Enoch, lighting his pipe, "I haven't made up my mind yet, whether I want you to give me the information about Fowler and Brown or not."
"What's the difficulty?" demanded Curly.
"Well, there's a number of personal reasons that I don't like to go into. But I've a suggestion to make. You say you're trying to get money together with which to retain a lawyer and carry out a campaign, so you aren't in a hurry, anyway. Now you write down in a letter all that you know about the two men, and send the letter to me, I'll treat it as absolutely confidential, and will return the material to you without reading it if I decide not to use it."
Curly puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette. "That's fair enough, Judge. As you say there's no great hurry and I always get het up, anyhow, when I talk about it. I'd better put it down in cool black and white. Where can I reach you?"
"No. 814 Blank Avenue, Washington, D. C.," replied Enoch.
Curly pulled an old note book out of his hip pocket and set down the address:
"All right, Judge, you'll hear from me sometime in the next few weeks.
I'll go back now and polish Agnew off."
And he hurried away, leaving Enoch to smoke his pipe thoughtfully as he stared at the Ida.
CHAPTER XIV
LOVE IN THE DESERT
"While I was teaching my boy obedience, I would teach him his next great obligation, service. So only could his manhood be a full one."—Enoch's Diary.
Shortly after two o'clock, Diana announced that she was ready to start. But the good-bys consumed considerable time and it was nearly three before they were really on their way. Enoch's eyes were a little dim as he shook hands with Milton.
"Curly has my address, Milton," he said, "drop me a line once in a while. I shall be more deeply interested in your success than you can realize."
"I'll do it, Judge, and when I get back East, I'll look you up. You're a good sport, old man!"
"You're more than that, Milton! Good-by!" and Enoch hurried out in response to Jonas' call.
They were finally mounted and permitted to go. Na-che rode first, leading a pack mule, Jonas second, leading two mules, Diana followed, Enoch bringing up the rear. Much to Jonas' satisfaction, Enoch had been obliged to abandon the overalls and flannel shirt which he had worn into the Canyon. Even the tweed suit was too ragged and shrunk to be used again. So he was clad in the corduroy riding breeches and coat that Jonas had brought. But John Red Sun's boots were still doing notable service and the soft hat, faded and shapeless, was pulled down over his eyes in comfort if not in beauty.
There was a vague trail to the spring which lay southwest of the Ferry. It led through the familiar country of fissures and draws that made travel slow and heavy. The trail rose, very gradually, wound around a number of multi-colored peaks and paused at last at the foot of a smooth-faced, purple butte. Here grew a cottonwood, sheltering from sun and sand a lava bowl, eroded by time and by the tiny stream of water that dripped into it gently. There was little or no view from the spring, for peaks and buttes closely hemmed it in. The November shadows deepened early on the strange, winding, almost subterranean trail, and although when they reached the cottonwood, it was not sundown, they made camp at once. Diana's tent was set up in the sand to the right of the spring. Enoch collected a meager supply of wood and before five o'clock supper had been prepared and eaten.
For a time, after this was done, Enoch and Diana sat before the tiny eye of fire, listening to the subdued chatter with which Jonas and Na-che cleared up the meal.
Suddenly, Enoch said, "Diana, how brilliant the stars are, to-night! Why can't we climb to the top of the butte for a little while? I feel smothered here. It's far worse than the river bottom."
"Aren't you too tired?" asked Diana.
"Not too tired for as short a climb as that, unless you are feeling done up!"
"I!" laughed Diana. "Why, Na-che will vouch for it that I've never had such a lazy trip before! Na-che, the Judge and I are going up the butte. Just keep a little glow of fire for us, will you, so that we can locate the camp easily."
"Yes, Diana, and don't be frightened if you hear noises. I'm going to teach Jonas a Navajo song."
"We'll try not to be," replied Diana, laughing as she rose.
It was an ascent of several hundred feet, but easily made and the view from the top more than repaid them for the effort. In all his desert nights, Enoch never had seen the stars so vivid. For miles about them the shadowy peaks and chasms were discernible. And Diana's face was delicately clear cut as she seated herself on a block of stone and looked up at him.
"Diana," said Enoch, abruptly, "you make me wish that I were a poet, instead of a politician."
"But you aren't a politician!" protested Diana. "You shall not malign yourself so."
"A pleasant comment on our American politics!" exclaimed Enoch. "Well, whatever I am, words fail me utterly when I try to describe the appeal of your beauty."
"Enoch," there was a note of protest in Diana's voice, "you aren't going to make love to me on this trip, are you?"
Enoch's voice expressed entire astonishment. "Why certainly I am,
Diana!"
"You'll make it very hard for me!" sighed Diana.
Enoch knelt in the sand before her and lifted her hands against his cheek.
"Sweetheart," he said softly, his great voice, rich and mellow although it hardly rose above a whisper, "my only sweetheart, not for all the love in the world would I make it hard for you. Not for all your love would I even attempt to leave you with one memory that is not all that is sweet and noble. Only in these days I want you to learn all there is in my heart, as I must learn all that is in yours. For, after that, Diana, we must never see each other again."
Diana freed one of her hands and brushed the tumbled hair from Enoch's forehead.
"Do you realize," he said, quietly, "that in all the years of my memory no woman has caressed me so? I am starved, Diana, for just such a gentle touch as that."
"Then you shall be starved no more, dearest. Sit down in the sand before me and lean your head against my knee. There!" as Enoch turned and obeyed her. "Now we can both look out at the stars and I can smooth your hair. What a mass of it you have, Enoch! And you must have been a real carrot top when you were a little boy."
"I was an ugly brat," said Enoch, comfortably. "A red-headed, freckled-faced, awkward brat! And unhappy and disagreeable as I was ugly."
"It seems so unfair!" Diana smoothed the broad forehead, tenderly. "I had such a happy childhood. I didn't go to school until I was twelve. Until then I lived the life of a little Indian, out of doors, taking the trail trips with dad or geologizing with mother. I don't know how many horses and dogs I had. Their number was limited only by what mother and father felt they could afford to feed."
"There was nothing unfair in your having had all the joy that could be crammed into your childhood," protested Enoch. "Nature and circumstance were helping to make you what you are. I don't see that anything could have been omitted. Listen, Diana."
Plaintively from below rose Na-che's voice in a slow sweet chant. Jonas's baritone hesitatingly repeated the strain, and after a moment they softly sang it together.
"Oh, this is perfect!" murmured Enoch. "Perfect!" Then he drew
Diana's hand to his lips.
How long they sat in silence listening to the wistful notes that floated up to them, neither could have told. But when the singing finally ceased, Diana, with a sudden shiver said,
"Enoch, I want to go back to the camp."
Enoch rose at once, with a rueful little laugh. "Our first precious evening is ended, and we've said nothing!"
"Nothing!" exclaimed Diana. "Enoch, what was there left to say when I could touch your hair and forehead so? We can talk on the trail."
"Starlight and you and Na-che's little song," murmured Enoch; "I am hard to satisfy, am I not?" He put his arms about Diana and kissed her softly, then let her lead the way down to the spring. And shortly, rolled in his blankets, his feet to the dying fire, Enoch was deep in sleep.
Sun-up found them on the trail again. All day the way wound through country that had been profoundly eroded. Na-che led by instinct, it seemed, to Enoch, for when they were a few miles from the spring, as far as he, at least, could observe, the trail disappeared, entirely. During the morning, they walked much, for the over-hanging ledges and sudden chasms along which Na-che guided them made even the horses hesitate. They were obliged to depend on their canteens for water and there was no sign of forage for the horses and mules. Every one was glad when the noon hour came.
"It will be better, to-night," explained Diana. "There are water holes known as Indian's Cups that we should reach before dark. They're sure to be full of water, for it has rained so much lately. The way will be far easier to-morrow, Enoch, so that we can talk as we go."
They were standing by the horses, waiting for Jonas and Na-che to put the dishes in one of the packs.
"Diana, do you realize that you made no comment whatever on what I told you yesterday? Didn't the story of Lucy seem wonderful to you?"
"I was too deeply moved to make any very sane comment," replied Diana.
"Enoch, will you let me see the diary?"
"When I die, it is to be yours, but—" he hesitated, "it tells so many of my weaknesses, that I wouldn't like to be alive and feel that you know so much about them." He laughed a little sadly.
"Yet you told Lucy them, didn't you?" insisted Diana with a smile.
"Don't make me jealous of that person, Enoch!"
"She was you!" returned Enoch, briefly. "To-night, I'll tell you,
Lucy, some of the things you have forgotten."
"You're a dear," murmured Diana, under her breath, turning to mount as
Jonas and Na-che clambered into their saddles.
All the afternoon, Enoch, riding under the burning sun, through the ever shifting miracles of color, rested in his happy dream. The past and the future did not exist for him. It was enough that Diana, straight and slender and unflagging rode before him. It was enough that that evening after the years of yearning he would feel the touch of Lucy's hand on his burning forehead. For the first time in his life, Enoch's spirit was at peace.
The pools were well up on the desert, where pinnacles and buttes had given way at last to a roughly level country, with only occasional fissures as reminders of the canyon. Bear grass and yucca, barrel and fish-hook cactus as well as the ocotilla appeared. The sun was sinking when the horses smelled water and cantered to the shallow but grateful basins. Far to the south, the chaos out of which they had labored was black, and mysterious with drifting vapors. The wind which whirled forever among the chasms was left behind. They had entered into silence and tranquillity.
After supper and while the last glow of the sunsets still clung to the western horizon, Na-che said,
"Jonas, you want to see the great Navajo charm, made by Navajo god when he made these waterholes?"
Jonas pricked up his ears. "Is it a good charm or a hoo-doo?"
"If you come at it right, it means you never die," Na-che nodded her head solemnly.
Jonas put a cat's claw root on the fire. "All right! You see, woman, that I come at it right."
Na-che smiled and led the way eastward.
"Bless them!" exclaimed Enoch. "They're doing the very best they can for us!"
"And they're having a beautiful time with each other," added Diana. "I think Jonas loves you as much as Na-che loves me."
"I don't deserve that much love," said Enoch, watching the fire glow on
Diana's face. "But he is the truest friend I have on earth."
Diana gave him a quick, wide-eyed glance.
"Ah, but you don't know me, as Jonas does! I wouldn't want you to know me as he does!" exclaimed Enoch.
"I'll not admit either Lucy or Jonas as serious rivals," protested
Diana.
Enoch laughed. "Dearest, I have told you things that Jonas would not dream existed. I have poured out my heart to you, night after night. All a boy's aching dreams, all a man's hopes and fears, I've shared with you. Jonas was not that kind of friend. I first met him when I became secretary to the Mayor of New York. He was a sort of porter or doorman at the City Hall. He gradually began to do little personal things for me and before I realized just how it was accomplished, he became my valet and steward, and was keeping house for me in a little flat up on Fourth Avenue.
"And then, when I was still in the City Hall I had a row with Luigi.
He spoke of my mother to a group of officials I was taking through
Minetta Lane.
"Diana, it was Luigi who taught me to gamble when I was not over eight years old. I took to it with devilish skill. What drink or dope or women have been to other men, gambling has been to me. After I came back from the Grand Canyon with John Seaton, I began to fight against it. But, although I waited on table for my board, I really put myself through the High School on my earnings at craps and draw poker. As I grew older I ceased to gamble as a means of subsistence but whenever I was overtaxed mentally I was drawn irresistibly to a gambling den. And so after the fight with Luigi—"
Enoch paused, his face knotted. His strong hands, clasping his knees as he sat in the sand, opposite Diana, were tense and hard. Diana, looking at him thought of what this man meant to the nation, of what his service had been and would be: she thought of the great gifts with which nature had endowed him and she could not bear to have him humble himself to her.
She sprang to her feet. "Enoch! Enoch!" she cried. "Don't tell me any more! You are entitled to your personal weaknesses. Even I must not intrude! I asked you about them because, oh, because, Enoch, you are letting your only real weakness come between you and me."
Enoch had risen with Diana, and now he came around the fire and put his hands on her shoulders. "No! No! Diana! not my weaknesses keep us apart, bitterly as they mortify me."
Diana looked up at him steadily. "Enoch, your great weakness is not gambling. Who cares whether you play cards or not? No one but Brown! But your weakness is that you have let those early years and Luigi's vicious stories warp your vision of the sweetest thing in life."
"Diana! I thought you understood. My mother—"
"Don't!" interrupted Diana, quickly. "Don't! I understand and because I do, I tell you that you are warped. You are America's only real statesman, the man with a vision great enough to mold ideals for the nation. Still you are not normal, not sane, about yourself."
Enoch dropped his hands from her shoulders and stood staring at her sadly.
"I thought you understood!" he whispered, brokenly.
Diana wrung her hands, turned and walked swiftly toward a neighboring heap of rocks whose shadows swallowed her. Enoch breathed hard for a moment, then followed. He found Diana, a vague heap on a great stone, her face buried in her hands. Enoch sat down beside her and took her in his arms.
"Sweetheart," he whispered, "what have I done?"
Diana, shaken by dry sobs, did not reply. But she put her arms about his neck and clung to him as though she could never let him go. Enoch sat holding her in an ecstasy that was half pain. Dusk thickened into night and the stars burned richly above them. Enoch could see that Diana's face against his breast was quiet, her great eyes fastened on the desert. He whispered again,
"Diana, what have I done?"
"You have made me love you so that I cannot bear to think of the future," she replied. "It was not wise of us to take this trip together, Enoch."
Enoch's arms tightened about her. "We'll be thankful all our lives for it, Diana. And you haven't really answered my question, darling!"
Diana drew herself away from him. "Enoch, let's never mention the subject again. The things you understand by weakness—why, I don't care if you have a thousand of them! But, dear, I want the diary. When you leave El Tovar, leave that much of yourself with me."
Enoch's voice was troubled. "I have been so curiously lonely! You can have no idea of what the diary has meant to me."
"I won't ask you for it, Enoch!" exclaimed Diana. Suddenly she leaned forward in the moonlight and kissed him softly on the lips.
Enoch drew her to him and kissed her fiercely. "The diary! It is yours, Diana, yours in a thousand ways. When you read it, you will understand why I hesitated to give it to you."
"I'll find some way to thank you," breathed Diana.
"I know a way. Give me some of your desert photographs. Choose those that you think tell the most. And don't forget Death and the Navajo."
"Oh, Enoch! What a splendid suggestion! You've no idea how I shall enjoy making the collection for you. It will take several months to complete it, you know."
"Don't wait to complete the collection. Send the prints one at a time, as you finish them. Send them to my house, not my office."
Soft voices sounded from the camping place. "We must go back," said
Diana.
"Another evening gone, forever," said Enoch. "How many more have we,
Diana?"
"Three or four. One never knows, in the Canyon country."
They moved slowly, hand in hand, toward the firelight. Just before they came within its zone, Enoch lifted Diana's hand to his lips.
"Good night, Diana!"
"Good night, Enoch!"
Jonas and Na-che, standing by the fire like two brown genii of the desert, looked up smiling as the two appeared.
"Ain't they a handsome pair, Na-che?" asked Jonas, softly. "Ain't he a grand looking man?"
Na-che assented. "I wish I could get each of 'em to wear a love ring.
I could get two the best medicine man in the desert country made."
"Where are they?" demanded Jonas eagerly.
"Up near Bright Angel."
"You get 'em and I'll pay for 'em," urged Jonas.
"We can't buy 'em! They got to be taken."
"Well, how come you to think I couldn't take 'em, woman? You show me where they are. I'll do the rest."
"All right," said Na-che. "Diana, don't you feel tired?"
"Tired enough to go to bed, anyway," replied Diana. "It's going to be a very cold night. Be sure that you and the Judge have plenty of blankets, Jonas. Good night!" and she disappeared into the tent.
The night was stinging cold. Ice formed on the rain pools and they ate breakfast with numbed hands. As usual, however, the mercury began to climb with the sun and when at mid-morning, they entered a huge purple depression in the desert, coats were peeled and gloves discarded.
The depression was an ancient lava bed, deep with lavender dust that rose chokingly about them. There was a heavy wind that increased as they rode deeper into the great bowl and this, with the swirling sand, made the noon meal an unpleasant duty. But, in spite of these discomforts, Enoch managed to ride many miles, during the day, with his horse beside Diana's. And he talked to her as though he must in the short five days make up for a life time of reticence.
He told her of the Seatons and all that John Seaton had done for him. He told her of his years of dreaming of the Canyon and of his days as Police Commissioner. He told of dreams he had had as a Congressman and as a Senator and of the great hopes with which he had taken up the work of the Secretary of the Interior. And finally, as the wind began to lessen with the sinking sun, and the tired horses slowed to the trail's lifting from the bowl, he told her of his last speaking trip, of its purpose and of its results.
"The more I know you," said Diana, "the more I am confirmed in the opinion I had of you years before I met you. And that is that however our great Departments need men of your administrative capacity and integrity—and I'm perfectly willing to admit that their need is dire—your place, Enoch Huntingdon, is in the Senate. Yet I suppose your party will insist on pushing you on into the White House. And it will be a mistake."
"Why?" asked Enoch quickly.
"Because," replied Diana, brushing the lavender dust from her brown hands thoughtfully, "your gift of oratory, your fundamental, sane dreams for the nation, your admirable character, impose a particular and peculiar duty on you. It has been many generations since the nation had a spokesman. Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, have been dead a long time. Most of our orators since have killed their own influence by fanatical clinging to some partisan cause. You should be bigger than any party, Enoch. And in the White House you cannot be. Our spoils system has achieved that. But in the Senate is your great, natural opportunity."
Enoch smiled. "Without the flourishes of praise, I've reached about the same conclusion that you have," he said. "I have been told," he hesitated, "that I could have the party nomination for the presidency, if I wished it. You know that practically assures election."
Diana nodded. "And it's a temptation, of course!"
"Yes and no!" replied Enoch. "No man could help being moved and flattered, yes, and tempted by the suggestion. And yet when I think of the loneliness of a man like me in the White House, the loneliness, and the gradual disillusionment such as the President spoke of you, the temptation has very little effect on me."
"How kind he was that day!" exclaimed Diana, "and how many years ago it seems!"
They rode on in silence for a few moments, then Diana exclaimed, "Look,
Enoch dear!"
Ahead of them, along the rim of the bowl, an Indian rode. His long hair was flying in the wind. Both he and his horse were silhouetted sharply against the brilliant western sky.
"Make a picture of it, Diana!" cried Enoch.
Diana shook her head. "I could make nothing of it!"
Na-che gave a long, shrill call, which the Indian returned, then pulled up his horse to wait for them. When Enoch and Diana reached the rim, the others already had overtaken him.
"It's Wee-tah!" exclaimed Diana, then as she shook hands, she added:
"Where are you going so fast, Wee-tah?"
The Indian, a handsome young buck, his hair bound with a knotted handkerchief, glanced at Enoch and answered Diana in Navajo.
Diana nodded, then said: "Judge, this is Wee-tah, a friend of mine."
Enoch and the Indian shook hands gravely, and Diana said, "Can't you take supper with us, Wee-tah?"
"You stay, Wee-tah," Na-che put in abruptly. "Jonas and I want you to help us with a charm."
"Na-che says you know a heap about charms, Mr. Wee-tah!" exclaimed
Jonas.
Wee-tah grinned affably. "I stay," he said. "Only the whites have to hurry. Good water hole right there." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, then turned his pony and led the way a few hundred yards to a low outcropping of stones, the hollowed top of which held a few precious gallons of rain water.
"My Lordy!" exclaimed Jonas, as he and Enoch were hobbling their horses, "if I don't have some charms and hoo-doos to put over on those Baptist folks back home! Why, these Indians have got even a Georgia nigger beat for knowing the spirits."
"Jonas, you're an old fool, but I love you!" said Enoch.
Jonas chuckled, and hurried off to help Na-che with the supper. The stunted cat's claw and mesquite which grew here plentifully made possible a glorious fire that was most welcome, for the evening was cold. Enoch undertook to keep the big blaze going while Wee-tah prepared a small fire at a little distance for cooking purposes. After supper the two Indians and Jonas gathered round this while Enoch and Diana remained at what Jonas designated as the front room stove.
"What solitary trip was Wee-tah undertaking?" asked Enoch. "Or mustn't
I inquire?"
"On one of the buttes in the canyon country," replied Diana, "Wee-tah's grandfather, a great chief, was killed, years ago. Wee-tah is going up to that butte to pray for his little son who has never been born."
"Ah!" said Enoch, and fell silent. Diana, in her favorite attitude, hands clasping her knees, watched the fire. At last Enoch roused himself.
"Shall you come to Washington this winter, Diana?"
"I ought to, but I may not. I may go into the Havesupai country for two months, after you go East, and put Washington off until late spring."
"Don't fear that I shall disturb you, when you come, dear." Enoch looked at Diana with troubled eyes.
She looked at him, but said nothing, and again there was silence.
Enoch emptied his pipe and put it in his pocket.