Enoch lifted sad eyes to the chief executive. His lips were painfully compressed and the President said, huskily:
"I know, my boy! I sensed long ago that you were a man who had drunk of a bitter cup. I wish I could have helped you bear it!" There was silence for a moment, then the President went on:
"What are you going to do to Brown, Huntingdon?"
"I haven't decided yet," replied Enoch slowly. "But I shall not let him go unpunished."
The President shook his head and sighed. "You must feel that way, of course, but before we talk about that let's review the political situation. I'm ending my second term. For years, as you know, a large portion of the party has had its eye on you to succeed me. In fact, as the head of the party, I may modestly claim to have been your first endorser! Long ago I recognized the fact that unless youth and virility and sane idealism were injected into the old machine, it would fall apart and radicalism would take its place."
"Or Tammanyism!" interjected Enoch.
"They are equally menacing in my mind," said the older man. "As you know, too, Huntingdon, there has been a quiet but very active minority very much against you. They have spent years trying to get something on you, and they've never succeeded. But--well, you understand mob psychology better than I do--if Brown evolves a slogan, a clever phrase, built about your gambling propensities, it will damn you far more effectively than if he had proved that you played crooked politics or did something really harmful to the country."
Enoch nodded. "Whom do you think Brown is for, Mr. President?"
"Has it ever occurred to you that Brown often picks up Fowler's policies and quietly pushes them?"
Again Enoch nodded and the President went on, "Brown never actively plays Fowler's game. There's an old story that an ancient quarrel separates them. But word has been carefully passed about that there is to be a dinner at the Willard to-morrow night, of the nature of a love feast, at which Fowler and Brown are to fall on each other's necks with tears."
Enoch got up from his chair and prowled about the great room restlessly, then he stood before the chief executive.
"Mr. President, why shouldn't Fowler go to the White House? He's a brilliant man. He's done notable service as Secretary of State. I don't think the cabinet has contained his equal for twenty-five years. He has given our diplomatic service a distinction in Europe that it never had before. He has a good following in the party. Perhaps the best of the old conservatives are for him. I don't like his attitude on the Mexican trouble and sometimes I have felt uneasy as to his entire loyalty to you. Yet, I am not convinced that he would not make a far more able chief executive than I?"
"Suppose that he openly ties to Brown, Huntingdon?"
"In that case," replied Enoch slowly, "I would feel in duty bound to interfere."
"And if you do interfere," persisted the President, "you realize fully that it will be a nasty fight?"
"Perhaps it would be!" Enoch's lips tightened as he shrugged his shoulders.
The President's eyes glowed as he watched the grim lines deepen in Enoch's face. Then he said, "Huntingdon, I'm giving a dinner to-morrow night too! The British Ambassador and the French Ambassador want to meet Señor Juan Cadiz. Did you know that your friend Cadiz is the greatest living authority on Aztec worship and a hectic fan for bullfighting as a national sport? My little party is entirely informal, one of the things the newspapers ordinarily don't comment on. You know I insist on my right to cease to be President on occasions when I can arrange for three or four real people to meet each other. This is one of those occasions. You are to come to the dinner too, Huntingdon. And if the conversation drifts from bullfighting and Aztec gods to Mexico and England's and France's ideas about your recent speeches, I shall not complain."
"Thank you, Mr. President," said Enoch.
"I would do as much for you personally, of course," the older man nodded, as he rose, "but in this instance, I'm playing politics even more than I'm putting my hand on your shoulder. It's good to have you back, Huntingdon! Good night!" and a few minutes later Enoch was out on the snowy street.
It was after six and he went directly home. He spent the evening going over accumulated reports. At ten o'clock Jonas came to the library door.
"Boss, how would you feel about going to bed? You know we got into early hours in the Canyon."
"I feel that I'm going immediately!" Enoch laughed. "Jonas, what have your friends to say about your trip?" as he went slowly up the stairs.
"Boss, I'm the foremost colored man in Washington to-night. I'm invited to give a lecture on my trip in the Baptist Church. They offered me five bones for it and I laughed at 'em. How come you to think, I asked 'em, that money could make me talk about my life blood's escape. No, sir, I give my services for patriotism. I can't have the paddle nor the name board framed till I've showed 'em at the lecture. I'm requested to wear my costume."
"Good work, Jonas! Remember one thing, though! Leave me and Miss Diana absolutely out of the story."
Jonas nodded. "I understand, Mr. Secretary."
When Enoch reached his office the next morning he said to Charley Abbott: "When or if Secretary Fowler's office calls with the usual inquiry, make no reply but connect whomever calls directly with me."
Charley grinned. "Very well, Mr. Secretary. Shall we go after those letters?"
"Whenever you say so. You'd better make an appointment as soon as possible with Cheney. He--" The telephone interrupted and Abbott took the call, then silently passed the instrument to Enoch.
"Yes, this is the Secretary's office," said Enoch. "Who is wanted? . . . This is Mr. Huntingdon speaking. Please connect me with Mr. Fowler. . . . Good morning, Mr. Fowler! I'm sorry to have made your office so much trouble. I understand you've been calling me daily. . . . Oh, yes, I thought it was a mistake. . . . Late this afternoon, at the French Ambassador's? Yes, I'll look you up there. Good-by."
Enoch hung up the receiver. "Was I to go to tea at Madame Foret's this afternoon, Abbott?"
"Yes, Mr. Secretary. Madame Foret called me up a few days ago and was so kind and so explicit--"
"It's quite all right, Abbott. Mr. Fowler wondered, he said, if I was to be invited!"
The two men looked at each other, then without further comment Enoch began to dictate his long-delayed letters. The day was hectic but Enoch turned off his work with zest.
Shortly after lunch the Director of the Geological Survey appeared. Enoch greeted him cordially, and after a few generalities said, "Mr. Cheney, what bomb are they preparing to explode now?"
Cheney ran his fingers through his white hair and sighed. "I guess I'm getting too old for modern politics, Mr. Secretary. You'd better send me back into the field. Neither you nor I knew it, but it seems that I've been using those fellows out in the field for my own personal ends. I have a group mining for me in the Grand Canyon and another group locating oil fields for me in Texas."
Enoch laughed, then said seriously: "What's the idea, Mr. Cheney? Have you a theory?"
Cheney shook his head. "Just innate deviltry, I suppose, on the part of Congress."
"You've been chief of the Survey fifteen years, haven't you, Mr. Cheney?"
"Yes, too long for my own good. Times have changed. People realized once that men who go high in the technical world very seldom are crooked. But your modern politician would believe evil of the Almighty."
"What sort of timber are you developing among your field men, Cheney?"
"Only so-so! Young men aren't what they were in my day."
Enoch eyed the tired face under the white hair sympathetically. "Mr. Cheney, you're letting these people get under your skin. And that is exactly what they are aiming to do. You aren't the man you were a few months ago. My advice to you is, take a vacation. When you come back turn over the field work to a younger man and devote yourself to finding who is after you and why. I have an idea that the gang is not interested in you, personally."
Cheney suddenly sat up very straight. "You think
that you--" then he hesitated. "No, Mr. Secretary, this is a young man's fight. I'd better resign."
"Perhaps, later on, but not now. After years of such honorable service as yours, go because you have reached the fullness of years and have earned your rest. Don't let these fellows smirch your name and the name of the Service. Clear both before you go."
"What do I care for what they say of me!" cried Cheney with sudden fire. "I know what I've given to the government since I first ran surveys in Utah! You're an eastern man and a city man, Mr. Secretary. If you had any idea of what a field man, in Utah, for example, or New Mexico, or Arizona endures, of the love he has for his work, you'd see why my pride won't let me justify my existence to a Congressional Committee."
"And yet," insisted Enoch, "I am going to ask you to do that very thing, Mr. Cheney. I am asking you to do it not for me or for yourself, but for the good of the Survey. Find out who, what and why. And tell me. Will you do it, Mr. Cheney?"
There was something winning as well as compelling in Enoch's voice. The director of the Survey rose slowly, and with a half smile held out his hand to the Secretary.
"I'll do it, Mr. Secretary, but for just one reason, because of my admiration and friendship for you."
Enoch smiled. "Not the best of reasons, I'm afraid, but I'm grateful anyhow. Will you let me know facts as you turn them up?"
Cheney nodded. "Good day, Mr. Secretary!" and Enoch turned to meet his next visitor.
Shortly before six o'clock Enoch shook hands with Madame Foret in her crowded drawing-room. He seemed to be quite unconscious of the more than usually interested and inquiring glances that were directed toward him.
"You had a charming vacation, so your smile says, Mr. Huntingdon!" exclaimed Madame Foret. "I am so glad! Where did you go?"
"Into the desert, Madame Foret."
"Oh, into the desert of that beautiful Miss Allen! She and her pictures together made me feel that that was one part of America I must not miss. She promised me that she would show me what she called the Painted Desert, and I shall hold her to the promise!"
"No one could show you quite so wonderfully as Miss Allen, I'm sure," said Enoch.
"Now, just what did you do to kill time in the desert, Huntingdon?" asked Mr. Johns-Eaton, the British Ambassador. "Why didn't you go where there was some real sport?"
"Oh, I found sport of a sort!" returned Enoch solemnly.
Johns-Eaton gave Enoch a keen look. "I'll wager you did!" he exclaimed. "Any hunting?"
"Some small game and a great deal of boating!"
"Boating! Now you are spoofing me! Listen, Mr. Fowler, here's a man who says he was boating in the desert!"
Fowler and Enoch bowed and, after a moment's more general conversation, they drew aside.
"About this Mexican trouble, Huntingdon," said Fowler slowly. "I said nothing as to your speaking trip, until your return, for various reasons. But I want to tell you now, that I considered it an intrusion upon my prerogatives."
"Have you told the President so?" asked Enoch.
"The President did not make the tour," replied Fowler.
"Just why," Enoch sipped his cup of tea calmly, "did you choose this occasion to tell me of your resentment?"
"Because," replied Fowler, in a voice tense with repressed anger, "it is my express purpose never to set foot in your office again, nor to permit you to appear in mine. When we are forced to meet, we will meet on neutral ground."
"Well," said Enoch mildly, "that's perfectly agreeable to me. But, excepting on cabinet days, why meet at all?"
"You are agreed that it shall be war between us, then?" demanded Fowler eagerly.
"Oh, quite so! Only not exactly the kind of war you think it will be, Mr. Secretary!" said Enoch, and he walked calmly back to the tea table for his second cup.
He stayed for some time longer, chatting with different people, taking his leave after the Secretary of State had driven away. Then he went home, thoughtfully, to prepare for the President's dinner.
The chief executive was a remarkable host, tactful, resourceful, and witty. The dinner was devoted entirely at first to Juan Cadiz and his wonderful stories of Aztec gods and of bullfighting. Gradually, however, Cadiz turned to modern conditions in Mexico, and Mr. Johns-Eaton, with sudden fire, spoke of England's feeling about the chaos that reigned beyond the Texan border lines. Monsieur Foret did not fully agree with the Englishman's general attitude, but when Cadiz quoted from one of Enoch's speeches, the ambassadors united in praise of the sanity of Enoch's arguments. The President did not commit himself in any way. But when he said good night to Enoch, he added in the hearing of the others:
"Thank you, old man! I wish I had a hundred like you!"
Enoch walked home through a light snow that was falling. And although his mind grappled during the entire walk with the new problem at hand, he was conscious every moment of the fact that a week before he had tramped through falling snow with Diana always within hand touch.
Jonas, brushing the snow from Enoch's broad shoulders, said casually: "I had a telegram from Na-che this evening, boss. She and Miss Diana start for Havasu canyon to-morrow."
Enoch started. "Why, how'd she happen to wire you, Jonas?"
"I done told her to," replied Jonas coolly, "and moreover, I left the money for her to do it with."
Enoch said nothing until he was standing in his dressing-gown before his bedroom fire. Then he turned to Jonas and said:
"Old man, it won't do. I can't stand it. I must not be able to follow her movements or I shall not be able to keep my mind on matters here. I shall never marry, Jonas. All the charms and all the affectionate desires of you and Na-che cannot change that."
Jonas gave Enoch a long, reproachful look that was at the same time well-tinctured with obstinacy. Without a word he left the room.
CHAPTER XVI
CURLY'S REPORT
"And now my house-mate is Grief. But she is wise and beautiful as the Canyon is wise and beautiful and I claim both as my own."--_Enoch's Diary_.
The Washington papers, the next morning, contained the accounts of two very interesting dinner parties. One was a detailed story of the President's dinner. The other told of the public meeting and reconciliation of Secretary Fowler and Hancock Brown. The evening papers contained, as did the morning editions the day following, widely varied comment on the two episodes.
Enoch did not see the President for nearly a week after the dinner party, excepting at the cabinet meeting. Then, in response to a telephone call one evening, he went to the White House and told the President of his break with Fowler.
"That was a curious thing for him to do," commented the chief executive. "It looks to me like a plain case of losing his temper."
"It struck me so," agreed Enoch.
"Do you think that he had anything to do with the publishing of that canard about you, Huntingdon?"
"I would not be surprised if he had. If I find that he was mixed up in it, Mr. President, I shall have to punish him as well as Brown."
"Horsewhipping is what Brown deserves," growled the President. "Huntingdon, why are they after Cheney?"
"I've told him to find out," replied Enoch. "I want him to put himself in the position of being able to give them the lie direct, and then resign."
"Who is after him?"
"I believe, if we can probe far enough, we'll find this same Mexican controversy at the bottom of it. Cheney has been immensely interested in the fuel problem. He's given signal help to the Bureau of Mines."
The telephone rang, and the President answered it. He returned to his arm-chair shortly, with a curious smile on his face.
"Secretary Fowler wants to see me. I did not tell him that you are calling. As far as he has informed me, you and he are still on a friendly basis. He will be along shortly, and I shall be keenly interested in observing the meeting."
Enoch smoked his cigar in silence for some moments before he said, with a chuckle:
"I like a fight, if only it's
in the open."
"So do I!" exclaimed the President.
The conversation was desultory until the door opened, admitting the Secretary of State. He gave Enoch a glance and greeted the chief executive, then bowed formally to Enoch, and stood waiting.
"Sit down, Fowler! Try one of those cigars! They haven't killed Huntingdon yet."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. President," stiffly, "it is quite impossible for me to make any pretense of friendship for the present Secretary of the Interior."
The President raised his eyebrows. "What's the trouble, Fowler?"
"You may have heard," Fowler's voice was sardonic, "that your Secretary of the Interior swung around the circle on a speech-making trip this fall!"
"I heard of it," replied the chief executive, "probably before you did, because I asked Mr. Huntingdon to make the trip."
"And may I ask, Mr. President, why you asked this gentleman to interfere with my prerogatives?"
"Come! Come, Fowler! You are too clever a man to attempt the hoity-toity manner with me! You undoubtedly read all of Huntingdon's speeches with care, and you observed that his entire plea was for the states to allow the Federal Government to proceed in its normal function of developing the water power and oil resources of this country; that a few American business men should not be permitted to hog the water power of the state for private gain, nor to embroil us in war with Mexico because of private oil holdings there. You will recall that whatever information he used, he procured himself and, before using, laid it in your hands. You laughed at it. You will recall that I asked you, a month before Huntingdon went out, if you would not swing round the circle, and you begged to be excused."
Still standing, the Secretary of State bowed and said, "Mr. Huntingdon has too distinguished an advocate to permit me to argue the matter here."
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