"If you hesitate so long," he said, "I shall--"
Diana laughed. "Begin to cry, as Curly said? Oh, don't do that! I shall be very happy to have you with me, but before we start, I think I shall develop some of the films I exposed on the way over. A ten o'clock start will be early enough, won't it? I have a developing machine with me. It may not take me even until ten."
Enoch nodded. "How does the work go?" he asked eagerly. "Did you attend the ceremony Na-che sent word to you about?"
"Yes! Out of a hundred exposures I made there, I think I got one fairly satisfactory picture." Diana sighed. "After all, the camera tells the story no better than words, and words are futile. Look! What medium could one use to tell the world of that?"
She swept her arm to embrace the view before them. The tiny sandy beach was on a curve of the river so sharp that above and below them the rushing waters seemed to drive into blind canyon walls. To the right, the Canyon on both sides was so sheer, the river bed so narrow that nothing but sky was to be seen above and beyond. But to the left, the south canyon wall terraced back at perhaps a thousand feet in a series of magnificent strata, yellow, purple and crimson. Still south of this, lifted great weathered buttes and mesas, fortifications of the gods against time itself. The morning sun had not yet reached the camp, but it shone warm and vivid on the peaks to the south, burning through the drifting mists from the river, in colors that thrilled the heart like music.
Enoch's eyes followed Diana's gesture. "I know," he said, softly. "It's impossible to express it. I've thought of you and your work so often, down here. Somehow, though, you do suggest the unattainable in your pictures. It's what makes them great."
Diana shook her head and turned toward her tent, while Enoch lighted his pipe and began his never-ending task of bringing in drift wood. He paused, a log on his shoulder, before Curly, who was squatting beside his muddy pan.
"Curly," he said, "is that stuff you have on Fowler and Brown, political, financial, or a matter of personal morals?"
"Personal morals and worse!" grunted Curly. "It's some story!"
Enoch turned away without comment. But the lines between his eyes deepened.
CHAPTER IX
THE CLIFF DWELLING
"Love! that which turns the meanest man to a god in some one's eyes! Yet I must not know it! Suppose I cast my responsibility to the winds and . . . and yet that sense of responsibility is all that differentiates me from Minetta Lane."--_Enoch's Diary_.
Diana began work on her films on a little folding table beside the spring. Enoch, throwing down his log close to the cave opening, paused to watch her. Jonas and Na-che, putting the cave in order, talked quietly to each other. Suddenly from the river, to the right, there rose a man's half choking, agonized shout and around the curve shot a skiff, bottom up, a man clinging to the gunwale. The water was too wild and swift for swimming.
"The rope, Judge, the rope!" cried Mack.
Enoch picked up a coil of rope, used for staking the horses, and ran to Mack who snatched it, twirled it round his head and as the boat rushed by him, the noosed end shot across the gunwale. The man caught it over his wrist and it was the work of but a few moments to pull him ashore.
He was a young man, with a two days' beard on his face, clad in the universal overalls and blue flannel shirt. He lay on the sand, too exhausted to move for perhaps five minutes, while Jonas pulled off his sodden shoes, and Na-che ran to kindle a fire and heat water. After a moment, however the stranger began to talk.
"Almost got me that time! Forgot to put my life preserver on. Don't bother about me. I'm drowned every day. Another boat with the rest of us should be along shortly. Hope they salvaged some of the stuff."
"What in time are you trying to do on the river, anyhow?" demanded Curly. "There's simpler ways of committing suicide."
The young man laughed. "Oh, we're some more fools trying to get from Green River to Needles!"
"On a bet?" asked Mack.
"Hardly! On a job! Geological Survey! Four of us! There they come! Whoo--ee!"
He staggered to his feet, as another boat shot around the curve. But this one came through in proper style, right side up, two men manning the oars and a third with a steering paddle. With an answering shout, they ran quickly up on the shore. They were a rough-bearded, overalled lot, young men, all of them.
"Gee whiz, Harden! We thought you were finished!" exclaimed the tallest of the trio.
"I would have been, but for these folks," replied Harden. "Here, let's make some introductions!"
They were stalwart fellows. Milton, the leader, was sandy-haired and freckled, a University of California man. Agnew was stocky and swarthy, an old Princeton graduate and Forrester, a thin, blonde chap had worked in New York City before he joined the Geological Survey. They were astonished by this meeting in the Canyon, but delighted beyond measure. They had been on the river for seven months and up to this time had met no one except when they went out for supplies.
"We camped up above those rapids, last night," said Milton. "Of course we didn't know of this spot. We really had nothing but a ledge, up there. This morning Harden undertook to patch his boat, with this result." He nodded toward the shivering cast-a-way, who had crowded himself to Na-che's fire. "Have you folks any objection to our stopping here to make repairs?"
"Lord, no! Glad to have you!" said Mack.
Enoch laughed. "Mack, it's no use! You and Curly are doomed to take on guests as surely as a dog takes on fleas. They started out alone, Milton, for a little vacation prospecting trip. I caught them a few days out and made them take me on. Then Miss Allen came along last night, and now your outfit! I'm sorry for you, Mack."
"I'll try to live through it," grinned Mack.
"Did you fellows find any pay gravel, coming down?" asked Curly.
"We didn't look for any," answered Agnew, "But a few years ago, I picked this out of the river bed."
He showed Curly a nugget as large as a pea. "Where the devil did you find that?" exclaimed Curly, eagerly.
"I can show you on our map," replied Agnew.
"I'll go fifty-fifty with you," proffered Curly. "Me to do all the work."
"No, you won't," laughed Agnew. "Say, old man, I put in four years, trying to make money out of the Colorado and I swear, the only real cash I've ever made on it has been the magnificent wages the Secretary of the Interior allows me. I'll keep the nugget. You can have whatever else you find there. Believe me, you'll earn it, before you get it!"
"You're foolish but I'm on! Mack, when shall we move?"
"I want to know a lot more before I break up my happy home." Mack's voice was dry. "In the meantime you fellows make yourselves comfortable. Come on, Curly. Let's get back to work!"
"Mr. Curly," said Jonas, "will you let me see that nugget?"
"Sure, Jonas, here it is!"
Jonas turned it over on his brown palm. "You mean to say you pick up gold like that, down here?"
"That's what I did," replied Agnew.
"Kin any one do it?"
"Yes, sir!"
"How come it everybody ain't down here doing it right now?"
"The going is pretty stiff," said Harden, with a grin, glancing at his steaming legs.
"Boss," Jonas turned the nugget over and over, "let's have a try at these ructions, before we go back!"
"Are you game to take to the boats, Jonas?" asked Enoch.
"No, boss, we'll just go over the hills, like Miss Diana does. For the Lord's sake, who'd want to go back to--"
"Jonas," interrupted Diana. "If you and Na-che will put together a lunch for us, the Judge and I will get started."
"I didn't quite get your name, sir," said Milton to Enoch.
"Just Smith," called Curly, from over his pan of gravel. "Mr. Just Smith! Judge, for short."
"Oh!" Milton continued to stare at Enoch in a puzzled way. "I beg your pardon! Come on, Harden, you're pretty well steamed out. Let's go back and see what we can salvage, while Ag and Forr begin to ov
erhaul the stuff we've already pulled out."
Not a half hour later, Enoch, Diana and Na-che were making their way slowly up the plateau trail, not however, to climb up the old trail to the main land. They turned midway toward their right. There was no trail, but Enoch knew the way by the distant peaks. They traveled afoot, single file, each with a canteen, a little packet of food and Na-che with the camera tripod, while Enoch insisted on toting the camera and the coil of rope. The sun was hot on the plateau and the way very rough. They climbed constantly over ragged boulders, and chaotic rock heaps, or rounded deep fissures that cut the plateau like spider webs. Muscular and in good form as was the trio, frequent rests were necessary. They had one mishap. Na-che, lagging behind, slipped into a fissure. Enoch and Diana blanched at her sudden scream and ran back as she disappeared. Mercifully a great rock had tumbled into the crevice some time before and Na-che landed squarely on this, six feet below the surface. When Diana and Enoch peered over, she was sitting calmly on the rock, still clinging to the tripod.
"I lost my lunch!" she grumbled as she looked up at them.
Diana laughed. "You may have mine! Better no lunch than no Na-che. Give us hold of the end of the tripod, honey, and we'll help you out."
A few moments of strenuous scrambling and pulling and Na-che was on the plateau brushing the sand from her clothes.
"Sit down and get your breath, Na-che," said Enoch.
"I'm fine! I don't need to sit," answered Na-che. "Let's get along." She started on briskly.
"I suppose things like that are of daily occurrence!" exclaimed Enoch. "Miss Allen, don't you think you could be more careful!"
Again Diana laughed. "It wasn't I who slipped into the crevice!"
"No, but I'll wager you've had many an accident."
"That's where part of the fun comes in. Why, only yesterday we had the most thrilling escape. We--"
"Please! I don't want to hear it!" protested Enoch,
"Pshaw! There's no more daily risk here, than there is in the streets of a large city."
Enoch grunted and followed as Diana hurried after Na-che. The course now led along the edge of the plateau which here hung directly above the river. The water twisted far below like a sinuous brown ribbon. The nooning sky was bronze blue and burning hot. The world seemed very huge, to Enoch; the three of them, toiling so carefully over the yellow plateau, very small and insignificant. He did not talk much during the rest intervals. He would light his pipe and smoke as if in physical contentment, but his deep blue eyes were burning and somber as they rested on the vast emptiness about them. Na-che always dozed during the stops. Diana, after she had observed the look in Enoch's eyes, occupied herself in writing up her note book.
It was just noon when they came to an old trail which Enoch believed dropped to the cliff dwelling. Before descending it, they ate their lunch, Enoch and Diana sharing with Na-che. This done, they began to work carefully down the faint old trail. For ten or fifteen minutes, they wormed zig-zag downward, the angle of descent so great that frequently they were obliged to sit down and slide, controlling their speed by clinging to the rocks on either side. They could not see the cliff dwelling; only the river winding so remotely below. But at the end of the fifteen minutes the trail stopped abruptly. So unexpectedly, in fact, that Enoch clung to a rock while his legs dangled over the abyss. He shouted to the others to wait while he peered dizzily below. A great section of the wall had broken away and the trail could not be taken up again until a sheer gap of twenty feet had been bridged.
Diana crept close behind Enoch and peered over his shoulders.
"If we tie the rope to this pointed rock, I think we can lower ourselves, don't you?" he asked.
"Easily!" agreed Diana. "I'll go first."
"Well, hardly! I'll go first and Na-che can bring up the rear, as usual."
They knotted the rope around the rock and Enoch and Diana quickly and easily made the descent. Na-che lowered the camera and tripod to them, then examined, with a sudden exclamation, the rock to which the rope was tied. "That rock will give way any minute," she cried. "Your weight has cracked it."
Even as she spoke, the rock suddenly tilted and slid, then bounded out to the depths below, carrying the rope with it. For a moment no one spoke, then Na-che, her round brown face wrinkled with amusement, said,
"Almost no Na-che, no Diana, no Judge, eh?"
"Jove, what an escape!" breathed Enoch.
"Na-che," said Diana, "you'll just have to return to the camp for another rope. You'd better ride back here. In the meantime, the Judge and I'll explore the dwelling."
Na-che nodded and without another word, disappeared. Diana turned to Enoch. "Lead ahead, Judge!"
The trail now led around a curve in the wall. Enoch edged gingerly beyond this and paused. The trail again was broken, but they were in full view of the cliff dwelling, which was snuggled in an inward curve of the Canyon, filling entirely a gigantic gap in the gray wall.
Diana exclaimed over its mute beauty. "I must see it!" she said. "But we can't bridge this gap without more ropes and more people to help."
"It looks to me," Enoch spoke with a sudden smile, "as though the Lord intended me to have a few moments alone with you!"
Diana smiled in return. "It does, indeed," she agreed.
"Let's try to settle ourselves comfortably here in view of the dwelling. I like to look at it. We can hear Na-che when she calls."
The trail was several feet wide at this point. Diana sat down on a rock, her back to the wall, clasping one knee with her brown fingers. For a little while Enoch stood looking from the dwelling to Diana, then far out to the glowing peaks across the Canyon to the north. Finally, he turned to silent contemplation of the lovely, slender figure against the wall. Diana's dignity, her utter sweetness, the something quieting and steadying in her personality never had seemed more pronounced to Enoch than in this country of magnificent heights and depths.
"Well," said Diana, finally, "after you've finished your inspection, perhaps you'll sit down and talk."
Enoch smiled and established himself beside her. He refilled his pipe, lighted it and laid it down. "Miss Allen," he said abruptly, "you saw the article in the Brown papers?"
"Yes," replied Diana.
"What did you think of it?"
"I thought what others think, that Brown is an unspeakable cur."
"I can't tell you how keenly I feel for you in the matter, Miss Allen. I would have given anything to have saved you from it."
"Would you? I'm not so sure that I would! You see, I'm just enough of a hero worshiper to be proud to have my name coupled in friendship with that of a great man."
"A great man!" repeated Enoch quietly, yet with a bitterness in his voice that wrung Diana's heart.
"Yes, Mr. Huntingdon," Diana's voice broke a little and she turned her head away.
The utter silence of the Canyon enveloped them.
At last Enoch said, "You have a big soul, Miss Allen, but you shall not sacrifice one smallest fragment of--of your perfection for me. If it is necessary for me to kill Brown, I shall do so."
Diana gasped, "Enoch!"
Enoch, at the sound of his name on her lips, touched her hand quickly and softly with his own, and as quickly drew it away, jumped to his feet and began to pace the trail.
"Yes, kill him, the cur! Diana, he did not even leave me a mother in the public mind! He maligned you. The burdens that I have carried for all the years, the horrors that I've wrestled with, the secret shames that I've hidden, he's exposed them all in the open marketplace. And he dragged you into my mire! Diana, each man must be broken in a different way. Some are broken by money, some by physical fear, some by spiritual fear, some--"
Diana interrupted. "Enoch, are you a friend of mine?"
Enoch turned his tortured eyes to hers. "I shall never tell you how much a friend I am to you, Diana. But my friendship is a fact you may draw on all the days of your life, as heavily as you will."
"And I am
your friend. Though I know you so little, no friend is as dear to me as you are." She rose and coming to his side, she took his hand in both of hers.
"Dear Enoch, what a man like Brown can say of you in an article or two, has no permanent weight with the public. Scurrilous stories of that type kill themselves by their very scurrility. No matter how eagerly the public may lap up the stuff, it cannot really heed it for, Enoch, America knows you and your service. America loves you. Brown cannot dislodge you by slandering your mother. The real importance and danger of that story lies in its reaction on you. I--I could not help recalling the story of that tormented, red-haired boy who went down Bright Angel trail with my father and I had to come to help him, if I could. O Enoch, if the Canyon could only, once more, wipe Luigi Guiseppi out of your life!"
Enoch watched Diana's wide gray eyes with a look of painful eagerness.
"Nothing matters, nothing can matter, Enoch, except that you find the strength in the Canyon to go back to your work and that you leave Brown alone. That is what I want to demand of your friendship, that you promise me to do those two things."
"I shall go back, of course," replied Enoch, gravely. "I had no thought of doing otherwise. But about Brown, I cannot promise."
"Then will you agree not to go back until you have talked to me again?"
"Again? But I expect to talk to you many times, Diana! You are not going away, are you?"
Diana nodded. "I'm using another person's money and I must get on, to-morrow, with the work I agreed to do. Promise me, Enoch."
"But, Diana--O Diana! Diana! Let me go with you!"
Diana turned to face the dwelling. "The Canyon can do more for you than I can, Enoch. But we'll meet, say at El Tovar before you go back to Washington. Promise me, Enoch."
"Of course, I promise. But, Diana, how can I let you go!"
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