Enoch suddenly laughed as he laid the paper down. "It is so childish, so preposterous, that even a fool wouldn't swallow it!" he exclaimed.
"It's just the sort of thing that people swallow whole," returned Abbott.
"Even at that, it's absolutely unimportant," said Enoch. Again Charley disagreed with him. "Mr. Secretary, it's very important, for it's a threat. It says that if you don't keep still, they will investigate your desert trip. And you know what they could make of that!"
"Let them keep their tongues off my Department, then," said Enoch, sternly. Nevertheless when Abbott had left him alone he did not turn immediately to his work. His cigar grew cold, and the ink dried on his pen, while he sat with the look of grim determination in his eyes and lips, deepening.
He dined out that night and was tired and depressed when he returned home. Jonas was smiling when he let the Secretary in and took his coat.
"Boss, they's a nice little surprise waiting for you up on your desk."
"Who'd be surprising me, Jonas? No one on earth but you, I'm afraid."
Jonas chuckled. "You're a bad guesser, boss! A bad guesser! How come you to think I could do anything to surprise you?"
Enoch went into his brightly lighted room and stopped before his desk with a low exclamation of pleasure. A large photograph stood against the book rack. Three little naked Indian children with feathers in their hair were dancing in the foreground. Behind them lay an ancient cliff dwelling half in ruins. To the left an Indian warrior, arms folded on his broad chest stood watching the children, his face full of an inscrutable sadness. The children were extraordinarily beautiful. Diana had worked with a very rapid lens and had caught them atilt, in the full abandonment of the child to joy in motion. The shadowed, mysterious, pathetic outline of the cliff dwelling, the somber figure of the chief only enhanced the vivid sense of motion and glee in the children. The picture was intrinsically lovely even without that haunting sense of the desert's significance that made Diana's work doubly intriguing.
Enoch's depression dropped from him as if it had never been. "Oh, my dearest!" he murmured, "you did not forget, did you! It is your very self you have sent me, your own whimsical joyousness!"
Jonas tapped softly on the door.
"Come in, Jonas! Isn't it fine! How do you suppose a photograph can tell so much!"
"It's Miss Diana, it ain't the camera!" exclaimed Jonas, with a chuckle. "Na-che says she ain't never seen her when she couldn't smile. That buck looks like that fellow Wee-tah. Boss, do you remember the night he took me out to see that desert charm?"
"Tell me about it, Jonas. It will rest me more than sleep."
Enoch sank back in his chair where he could face the photograph, and Jonas established himself on the hearth rug and told his story with gusto. "I got a lot of faith in Injun charms," he said, when he had finished.
"They didn't get us our trip down Bright Angel," sighed Enoch, even as he smiled.
"We'll get it yet, see if we don't!" protested Jonas stoutly. "Na-che and I ain't give up for a minute. Don't laugh about it, boss."
"I'm not laughing," replied Enoch gravely. "I'm thinking how fortunate I am in my friends, you being among those present, Jonas."
"As I always aim to be," agreed Jonas. "Do you think you could maybe sleep now, boss?"
"Yes, I think so, Jonas," and Enoch was as good as his word.
Nearly two weeks passed before the attack on the Department of the Interior was renewed. This time it was a deliberate assault on Enoch's honesty. The Alaskan decision served as a text. This was held up as a model of corruption and an example of the type of decision to be expected from a gambling lawyer. Followed a list of half a dozen of Enoch's rulings on water power control, on forest conservation and on coal mining, each one interpreted in the light of Enoch's mania for gambling. A man, the article said in closing, may, if he wishes, take chances with his own fortune or his own reputation, but what right has he to risk the public domain?
Several days went by after the appearance of this edifying story, but Enoch made no move. Then the President summoned him to the White House.
"Enoch, shall you let that screed go unchallenged?" he demanded.
"What can I say, Mr. President?" asked Enoch. "And really, that sort of thing doesn't bother me much. It is only the usual political mud slinging. They are feeling me out. They want more than anything to get me into a newspaper controversy with them. I am going to be difficult to get."
"So I see!" retorted the President. "If you are not careful, old man, people will begin to think Brown is right and you are afraid."
Enoch laughed. "I am not afraid of him or any other skunk. But also, in spite of my red hair, I have a good deal of patience. I am waiting for our friends to trot out their whole bag of tricks."
"What do you hear from Fowler?" asked the President.
"Nothing. I am desperately sorry that he has got mixed up with Brown. He is a brilliant man and the party needs him. I hope his attitude toward me has made no break in the pleasant relationship between you and him, Mr. President."
"It did for a short time. But we got together over the Dutch Guiana matter and he's quite himself again. As you say, the party can ill afford to lose him. But a man who works with Brown I consider lost to the party, no matter if he keeps the name."
"Fowler used to like me," said Enoch, thoughtfully.
"He certainly did. But the reason that Fowler will always be a politician and not a statesman is that he is still blind to the fact that the biggest thing a man can do for himself politically is to forget himself and work for the party."
"You mean for the country, do you not?" asked Enoch.
"It should be the same thing. If Fowler can get beyond himself, he'll be a statesman. But he's fifty and characters solidify at fifty. He's been a first rate Secretary of State, because he's a first rate international lawyer, because his tact is beyond reproach and because he is forced by the nature of his work to think nationally and not personally."
"I'm sorry he's taken up with Brown," repeated Enoch. "There never was such a dearth of good men in national politics before."
"I've known him for many years," the President said thoughtfully, "and I never knew him to do a dishonest thing. He's full of horse sense. I've heard rumors that in his early days in the Far West he got in with a bad crowd, but he threw them off and any one that knew details has decently forgotten them. I've tried several times to speak to him about this new alliance but although he's never shown temper as he did that night when you were here, I get nowhere with him. His ideas for the party are sane and sound and constructive."
"You mean for the country, do you not, sir?" asked Enoch again with a smile.
The older man smiled too. "Hanged if I don't mean both!" he exclaimed.
"What do you think of Havisham as presidential material?" asked Enoch.
"Too good-natured! A splendid fellow but not quite enough chin! By the way, I understand you refused to commit yourself to him the other day."
Enoch rose with a sigh. "Life to some people seems to be a simple aye! aye! nay! nay! proposition. It never has been to me. Each problem of my life presents many facets, and the older I grow the more I realize that most of my decisions concerning myself have been made for one facet and not for all. This time I'm trying to make a multiple decision, as it were."
"I think I understand," said the Chief executive. "Good night, Enoch."
And Enoch went home to the waiting Jonas.
CHAPTER XVII
REVENGE IS SWEET
"And then, after that day on the Colorado was ended, after the agony of toil, the wrestling with death while our little boats withstood the shock of destiny itself, oh, then, the wonder and the peace of the night's camp. Rest! Rest at last!"--_Enoch's Diary_.
January slipped swiftly by and February, with its alternate rain and snow came on. The splendid mental and physical poise that Enoch had brought back with him from the Canyon stood him in good stead under the pressure
of office business which never had been so heavy. One morning, late in February, Cheney came to see the Secretary.
"Well, Mr. Cheney, have you made your discovery?" asked Enoch.
Cheney nodded slowly. "But I didn't make it until last night, Mr. Huntingdon. I've followed up all sorts of leads that landed me nowhere. Last night, a newspaper reporter came to my house. He's with the News now, but he used to be with Brown. He came round to learn something about our men finding gold in the Grand Canyon. He wanted the usual fool thing, an expression of opinion from me as Director. As soon as he let slip that he'd been on the Brown papers, I began to question him and I found that he'd been fired because he'd refused to go out to Arizona and follow up your vacation trip. But, he said, two weeks ago they started another fellow on the job."
Enoch did not stir by so much as an eye wink.
"I thought you ought to know this, although, personally, it may be a matter of indifference to you."
Enoch nodded. "And what are your conclusions, Mr. Cheney?"
"That Brown is determined to discredit the Department of the Interior and you, until you are ousted and a man in sympathy with his Mexican policy is put in."
"I agree with you, entirely. And what are your plans?"
"I shall stick by my Bureau until we lick him. I haven't the slightest desire to desert my Chief. When I thought it was I they were after, I felt differently."
"Thanks, Mr. Cheney! Will you give me the name of the reporter of whom you were speaking."
"James C. Capp. He's not a bad chap, I think."
Enoch nodded and Cheney took his departure. There were several important conferences after this which Enoch cleared off rapidly and with his usual efficiency. When, however, Jonas announced luncheon, Abbott asked for a little delay.
"Here is an interesting item from this morning's Brown," he said. Enoch read the clipping carefully.
"The visitor to El Tovar, the rim hotel of the Grand Canyon receives some curious impressions of our governmental prerogatives. Recently a government expedition down the Colorado was too well equipped with spirits and had some severe smash-ups. Two of the men became disgusted and quit, but nothing daunted, Milton, the leader took on two fugitives from justice in Utah and proceeded on his way. A week later, however, there was a complete smash-up both moral and material. The boats were lost and the expedition disbanded. The expensive equipment lies in the bottom of the Colorado. So much for the efficiency and morale of the U. S. Geological Survey."
Enoch laughed, but there was an unpleasant twist to his mouth as he did it.
"Abbott," he said, "will you please find out if Brown is in New York. Wherever he is, I am going to see him, immediately and I want you to go with me. No, don't be alarmed! There will be no personal violence, yet."
The locating of the newspaper publisher was a simple task. An hour after lunch, Charley reported Brown as in his New York office.
"Very well," said Enoch, "telegraph him that we will meet him at his office at nine to-night. We will take the three o'clock train and return at midnight."
It was not quite nine o'clock when Enoch and Charley entered Hancock Brown's office. The building was buzzing with newspaper activities, but the publisher's office was quiet. A sleepy office attendant was awaiting them. With considerable ceremony he ushered the two across the elaborate reception room and throwing open a door, said:
"The Secretary of the Interior, sir."
A small man, with a Van Dyke beard and gentle brown eyes crossed the room with his hand outstretched.
"Mr. Huntingdon! this is a pleasure and an honor!"
"It is neither, sir," said Enoch, giving no heed to the outstretched hand.
Brown raised his eyebrow. "Will you be seated, Mr. Huntingdon?"
"Not in your office, sir. Mr. Brown, I have endured from your hands that which no man would think to make another endure." Enoch's beautiful voice was low but its resonance filled the office. His eyes were like blue ice. "I have remained silent, for reasons of my own, under your personal attacks on me, but now I have come to tell you that the attacks on the Department of the Interior and on my personal life must cease."
Hancock Brown looked at Enoch with gentle reproach in his eyes. "Surely you don't want to muzzle the press, Mr. Huntingdon?"
"We're not speaking of the press," returned Enoch, "I have sincere admiration for the press of this country."
Brown flushed a little at this. "I shall continue on exactly the line I have laid down," he said quietly.
"If," said Enoch, clearly, "Miss Allen is brought into your publication again either directly or by implication, I shall come to your office, Mr. Brown, and shoot you. Abbott, you are the witness to what I say and to the conversation that has led to it."
"I am, Mr. Secretary," said Charley. "And if for any reason you should be unable to attend to the matter, I would do the shooting for you."
"This will make interesting copy," said Brown.
"I have within my control," Enoch went on, steadily, "the means to force you to cease to put out lies concerning the Department of the Interior and me. I seriously consider not waiting for your next move, but of making use of this in retaliation for what you have done to me. As to that, I have reached no conclusion. This is all I have to say."
Enoch turned on his heel and closely followed by Charley left the office. As they entered the taxicab, Abbott said, "Gee, that did me more good than getting my salary doubled! I thought you were going to use this morning's item as a text!"
"You'd better have Cheney prepare a reply to that, for me to sign," said Enoch and he lapsed into silence. They went directly to their train and to bed and the next morning office routine began promptly at nine as usual.
February slipped into March. One cold, rainy morning Abbott, with a broad smile on his face, came in to take dictation.
"What's happened, Abbott?" asked Enoch. "Some one left you some money?"
"Better than that!" exclaimed Charley. "I dined at the Indian Commissioner's last night and whom do you think I took out? Miss Allen!"
A slow red suffused Enoch's forehead and died out. "When did she return to Washington?" he asked, quietly.
"A day or so ago. She is studying at the Smithsonian. She says she'll be here two months."
"She is well, I hope," said Enoch.
"She looks simply glorious!"
Enoch nodded. "Instead of dictating letters, this morning, Abbott, suppose you start the visitors this way. Somehow, the thought of wading through that pile, right now, sickens me."
Charley's face showed surprise, but he rose at once. "Mr. Cheney's been waiting for an hour out there with an interesting chap from the western field. Perhaps you'd better see them before I let the committee from California in."
Cheney came first. "Mr. Secretary, one of my men is in from Arizona. He is very much worked up over Brown's last effort and he's got so much to say that I thought you'd better meet him. Incidentally, he's a very fine geologist."
"Bring him in," said Enoch.
The Director swung open the door and moving slowly on a cane, Milton came into the room.
"Mr. Secretary, Mr. Milton," said Cheney. "He--" then he stopped with his mouth open for Milton had turned white and the Secretary was laughing.
"Judge!" gasped Milton.
Enoch left his desk and crossing the room seized both Milton's hands, cane and all.
"Milton, old boy, there's no man in the world I'd rather see than you."
"Why, are you two old friends?" asked Cheney.
"Intimate friends!" exclaimed Enoch. "Cheney, I'll remember the favor all my life, if you'll leave me alone with Milton for a little while."
"Why certainly! Certainly! I didn't know Milton was trying to spring a surprise on you. I'll be just outside when I'm needed."
"Sit down, Milton," said Enoch, soberly, when they were alone. "Don't hold my deception against me. I was not spying. It was the blindest fate in the world that brought me to the Canyon and to your expedit
ion."
Milton's freckled face was still pale. "Hold it against you! Of course not! But you've rattled me, Judge,--Mr. Secretary."
"No one but Abbott knows of my trip and he in baldest outline. Keep my secret for me, old man, as long as you possibly can. I suppose it will leak out eventually."
Milton was staring at Enoch. "Think of all we said and did!" he gasped.
"Especially what we did! Oh, it was glorious! Glorious!" cried Enoch. "It did all for me that you thought it might, Milton. Do you remember?"
"Yes, I remember. And I remember telling you my personal ambitions! I'd rather have cut out my tongue!"
"And once you all told what you thought of Enoch Huntingdon!" The Secretary burst out laughing, and Milton joined him with a great "Ha! ha!"
"So you were the fugitive from justice, that joined my drunken crew," chuckled Milton, wiping the tears from his eyes. "And I came over to try to put myself straight as to that with the Big Boss!"
"The best part of it all is that excepting Abbott and Jonas and now you, not a living soul knew it was the Secretary of the Interior who took the trip."
"Of course, there was Miss Allen!" added Milton. "Don't forget her! But she's as safe as the Canyon itself at keeping a secret."
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