CHAPTER V
A PHOTOGRAPHER OF INDIANS
"When I tutored boys I wondered most at their selfishness and their generosity. They had so much of both! And I believe that as men they lose none of either."—Enoch's Diary.
Enoch knew what it was to fight himself. Perhaps he knew more about such lonely, unlovely battles than any man of his acquaintance. The average man is usually too vain and too spiritually lazy to fight his inner devils to the death. But Enoch had fought so terribly that it seemed to him that he could surely win this new struggle. Nothing should induce him to break his vow of celibacy. He cursed himself for a weak fool in not obeying Frank Allen's request. Then he gathered together all his resources, to protect Diana from himself.
A week or so went by, during which Enoch made no attempt to see Diana or to hear from her. The office routine ground on and on. The Mexican cloud thickened. Alaska developed a threatening attitude over her coal fields. The farmers of Idaho suddenly withdrew their proposals regarding water power. Calmly and with clear vision, Enoch met each day's problems. But the lines about his mouth deepened.
One day, early in August, Charley Abbott came to the Secretary's desk.
"Miss Diana Allen would like to see you for a few moments, Mr.
Secretary."
Enoch did not look up. "Ask her to excuse me, Mr. Abbott, I am very busy."
Charley hesitated for an instant, then went quickly out.
"Luncheon is served, boss," said Jonas, shortly after.
"Is Abbott gone?" asked Enoch.
"Yes, sir! He's took that Miss Allen to lunch, I guess. He's sure gone on that young lady. How come everybody thinks she's so beautiful, boss?"
"Because she is beautiful, Jonas, very, very beautiful."
The faithful steward looked keenly at the Secretary. He had not missed the appearance of a line in the face that was the whole world to him.
"Boss," he said, "don't you ever think you ought to marry?"
Enoch looked up into Jonas' face. "A man with my particular history had best leave women alone, Jonas."
Jonas' mouth twitched. "They ain't the woman ever born fit to darn your socks, boss."
Enoch smiled and finished his lunch in silence. He would have given a month of his life to know what errand had brought Diana to his office. But Charley Abbott, returning at two o'clock with the complacent look of a man who has lunched with a beautiful girl, showed no intention of mentioning the girl's name. And Enoch went on with his conferences. But it was many days before he opened the black book again.
Diana's exhibition must have been of unusual quality, for jaded and cynical Washington learned of its existence, spoke of it and went to see it. It seemed to Enoch that every one he met took special delight in mentioning it to him.
Even Jonas, one night, as he brought in the bed-time pitcher of ice water, said, "Boss, I saw Miss Allen's pictures this evening. They sure are queersome. That must be hotter'n Washington out there. How come you ain't been, Boss?"
"How do you know I haven't seen them, Jonas?" asked Enoch quickly.
"Don't I know every place you go, boss? Didn't you tell me that was my
job, years ago? How come you think I'd forget?" Jonas was eyeing the
Secretary warily. "Mr. Abbott, he's got a bad case on that Miss Allen.
He's give me at least a dollar's worth of ten cent cigars lately so's
I'll stand and smoke and let him talk to me about her."
Enoch grunted.
"He says she—" Jonas rambled on.
Enoch looked up quickly. "I don't want to hear it, Jonas." Jonas drew himself up stiffly. The Secretary laid his own broad palm over the black hand that still held the handle of the water pitcher. "Spare me that, old friend," he said.
Jonas put his free hand on Enoch's shoulder. "Are you sure you're right, boss?" he asked huskily.
"I know I'm right, Jonas."
"Well, I don't see it your way, boss, but what's right for you is right for me. Good night, sir," and shaking his head, Jonas slowly left the room.
But Enoch was destined to see the pictures after all. One day, after Cabinet meeting, the President, in his friendly way, clapped Enoch on the shoulder.
"First time in a great many years, Huntingdon, that the Indian Bureau has distinguished itself for anything but trouble! I saw Miss Allen's pictures last night. My word! What a sense of heat and peace and, yes, by jove, passion! those photographs tell. The Bureau ought to own those pictures, old man. Especially the huge enlargement of Bright Angel trail and the Navaho hunters. Eh?"
"Well, to tell the truth, Mr. President," said Enoch slowly, "I haven't seen the pictures."
"Not seen them! Why some one said you discovered Miss Allen!"
"In a way I did, but I don't deserve any credit for that."
"Not if he saw her first!" exclaimed the Secretary of State, who had loitered behind the others.
The President nodded. "She is very lovely. I saw her at a distance, and I want to meet her. Now, Mr. Huntingdon, it's very painful for me to have to chide you for dereliction in office. But a man who will neglect those pictures for the—well, the coal fields of Alaska, should be dealt with severely."
"Hear! Hear!" cried the Secretary of State.
The President laughed. "And so I must ask you, Mr. Huntingdon, to bring Miss Allen to see me, after you have gone carefully over the pictures. Jokes aside, you know my keen interest in Indian ethnology?" Enoch nodded, and the President went on. "If this girl has the brains and breadth of vision I'm sure she must have to produce a series of photographs like those, I want to know her and do what I can to push her work. So neglect Mexico and Alaska for a little while, tomorrow, will you, Huntingdon?"
Enoch's laughter was a little grim, but with a quick leap of his heart, he answered. "A man can but obey the Commander in Chief, I suppose!"
As the door swung to behind him, the President said to the Secretary of
State, "Huntingdon is working too hard, I'm afraid. Does he ever play?"
"Horseback riding and golf. But he's a woman hater. At least, if not a hater, an avoider!"
"I like him," said the President. "I want him to play."
That evening Enoch went to see the pictures. There were perhaps a hundred of them, telling the story of the religion of the Navahos. Only one whom the Indians loved and trusted could have procured such intimate, such dramatic photographs. They were as unlike the usual posed portraits of Indian life as is a stage shower unlike an actual thunder storm. There was indeed a subtle passion and poignancy about the pictures that it seemed to Enoch as well as to the President, only a fine mind could have found and captured. He had made the rounds of the little room twice, threading his way abstractedly through the crowd, before he came upon Diana. She was in white, standing before one of the pictures, answering questions that were being put to her by a couple of reporters. She bowed to Enoch and he bowed in return, then stood so obviously waiting for the reporters to finish that they actually withdrew.
Enoch came up and held out his hand. "These are very fine, Miss Allen."
"I thought you were not coming to see them," said Diana. "It makes me very happy to have you here!"
"Does it?" asked Enoch quickly. "Why?"
"Because—" here Diana hesitated and looked from Enoch's stern lips to his blue eyes.
"Yes, go on, do!" urged Enoch. "For heaven's, sake, treat me as if I were a human being and not—"
It was his turn to hesitate.
"Not the Washington Monument?" suggested Diana.
Enoch laughed. "Am I as bad as that?" he asked.
Diana nodded. "Very nearly! Nevertheless, for some reason I don't understand, I've had the feeling that you would like the pictures and get what I was driving at, better than any one."
"Thank you," said Enoch slowly. "I do like them. So much so that I wish that I might own them, instead of the Indian Bureau. The President, to-day, told me the Indian Bureau ought to buy them. And also, he asked me to bring you to see him to-morrow."
A sudden flush made roses in Diana's beautifully modeled cheeks.
"Did he! Mr. Huntingdon, how am I ever going to thank you?"
"I deserve no thanks at all. It was entirely the President's own idea.
In fact, I had not intended to come to your exhibition."
"No? Why not? Do you dislike me so much as that? And, after all, Mr. Secretary, if the pictures are interesting, the fact that a woman took them should not prejudice you against them."
"Abbott's been giving me a bad reputation, I see," said Enoch. "I'll have to get Jonas to tell you what a really gentle and affectionate and er—mild, person I am. I've a notion to reduce Abbott's salary."
"Charley Abbott is a dear, and he's a devoted admirer of yours," Diana exclaimed.
"And of yours," rejoined Enoch.
"He's very discerning," said Diana, her eyes twinkling and the corners of her mouth deepening. "But you shall not evade me this way, Mr. Huntingdon. Why didn't you want to see my pictures?"
"I didn't say that I didn't want to see them. Women are always inaccurate, or at least, so I have heard."
"I would say that Mr. Abbott had a great deal more data on the general subject of women than you, Mr. Secretary. You really ought to get him to check you up! Please, why didn't you intend to come to my exhibition?"
"I have been swamped with extra work of late," answered Enoch.
"Yes?" Diana's eyebrows rose and her intelligent great eyes were fastened on Enoch's with an expression so discerning and so sympathetic, that he bit his lip and turned from her to the Navaho, who prayed in the burning desert before him. The reporters, who had been hovering in the offing, closed in on Diana immediately. When she was free once more, Enoch turned back and held out his hand.
"Good night, Miss Allen. If you don't mind coming over to my office at twelve to-morrow, I can take you to the White House then."
"I shall not mind!—too much! Good night, Mr. Secretary," replied Diana, with the deepening of the corners of her mouth that Enoch now recalled had belonged to the little girl Diana.
Enoch made an entry in the black book that night.
"I wonder, Diana, how much Frank has told you of me and my unhappy history. I wonder how you would feel if a man whose mother was a harlot who died of an unspeakable disease were to ask you to marry him. Oh, my dear, don't be troubled! I shall never, never, ask you. Your pictures moved me more than I dared try to express to you. It was as if you had carried me in a breath to the Canyon and once more I beheld the wonder, the kindliness, the calm, the inevitableness of God's ways. I'm going to try, Diana, to make a friend of you. I believe that I have the strength. What I am very sure of is that I have not the strength to know that you are in Washington and never see you."
The clock struck twelve the next day, when Abbott came to the
Secretary's desk. Enoch was deep in a conference with the Attorney
General.
"Miss Allen is here," he said softly.
"Give me five minutes!" exclaimed the Attorney General.
"I'm sorry." Enoch rose from his desk. "I'm very sorry, old fellow, but this is an appointment with the President. Can you come about three, if that suits Abbott's schedule?"
"Not till to-morrow, I'm afraid," said the Attorney General.
Enoch nodded. "It's just as well. I think I'll have some private advices from Mexico by then that may somewhat change our angle of attack. All right, Jonas! I'm coming. Ask Miss Allen to meet me at the carriage."
But he overtook Diana in the elevator. She wore the brown silk suit, and Enoch thought she looked a little flushed and a little more lovely than usual.
"I'm a marked person, Mr. Secretary," she said, with a twinkle in her eyes. "You'd scarcely believe how many total strangers have asked me to introduce them to you, since you walked up Pennsylvania Avenue with me."
"I'm glad you have an appreciative mind," returned Enoch. "I hope that you are circumspect also, and won't impose on me because of my condescension."
"I'll try not to," Diana answered meekly, as Enoch followed her into the carriage.
They smiled at each other, and Enoch went on, "Of course, I've been feeling rather proud of the opportunity to display myself before Washington with you. I've been called indifferent to women. I'm hoping now that the gossips will say, 'Aha! Huntingdon's a deep one! No wonder he's been indifferent to the average woman!'"
Diana eyed him calmly. "That doesn't sound at all like Washington
Monument," she murmured.
"More like Charley Abbott, I suppose!" retorted Enoch.
"No," answered Diana thoughtfully, "hardly like Mr. Abbott's method. I would say that he belonged to a different school from you."
"Yes? What school does Abbott represent?"
"Well, he has a dash, an ease, that shows long and varied experience. Charley Abbott is a finished ladies' man. It almost discourages me when I contemplate the serried ranks of women that must have contributed to his perfect finesse."
"Discourages you?" queried Enoch.
Diana did not answer. "But," she went on, "while Charley is a graduate of the school of experience and you—"
She paused.
"Yes, and I—," pressed Enoch.
"I won't impose on your condescension by telling you," said Diana.
"Pshaw!" muttered the Secretary of the Interior.
Suddenly Diana laughed. Enoch, after a moment, laughed with her, and they entered the White House grounds still chuckling.
The President did not keep them waiting. "I may not be able to order my wife and daughter about," he said, as he shook hands with Enoch, "but I certainly have my official family well under control. Did you see the pictures, Huntingdon?"
"I saw and was conquered, Mr. President," replied Enoch.
"What would you say, Miss Allen, if I tell you that I had to force this fellow into going to see your wonderful pictures?" the President asked.
"It wouldn't surprise me," replied Diana, in an enigmatical voice that made both men smile.
"I see you understand our Secretary of the Interior," the President said complacently. "Sit down, children, and Miss Allen, talk to me. How long did it take you to make that collection of photographs?"
"I began that particular collection ten years ago. Those pictures have been sifted out of nearly two thousand prints."
"Did you take any other pictures during that period?" asked the
President.
"Oh, yes! I was, I think, fourteen or fifteen when I first determined to give my life to Indian photography. I didn't at that time think of making a living out of it. I had a dream of making a photographic history of the spiritual life of some of the South-western tribes. It didn't occur to me that anything but a museum or possibly a library would care for such a collection. But to my surprise there was a ready market for really good prints of Indians and Indian subjects. So while I have kept always at work on my ultimate idea, I've made and sold many, many pictures of Indians on all sorts of themes."
Enoch looked from Diana's half eager, half abashed eyes, to the
President's keen, hawk-like face, then back to Diana.
"What gave you the idea to begin with?" asked the President.
Diana looked thoughtfully out of the window. Both men watched her with interest. Enoch's rough hewn face, with its unalterably somber expression, was set in an almost painful concentration. The President's eyes were cool, yet eager.
"It is hard for me to put into words just what first led me into the work," said Diana slowly. "I was born in a log house on the rim of the Grand Canyon. My father was a canyon guide."
"Yes, Frank Allen, an old Yale man. I know him."
"Do you remember him?" cried Diana. "He'll be so delighted! He took you down Bright Angel years ago."
"Of course I remember him. Give him my regards when you write to him.
And go on with your story."
"My mother was a California woman, a very good geologist. My nurse was a Navajo woman. Somehow, by the time I was into my teens, I was conscious of the great loss to the world in the disappearance of the spiritual side of Indian life. I knew the Canyon well by then and I knew the Indians well and the beauty of their ceremonies was even then more or less merged in my mind with the beauty of the Canyon. Their mysticism was the Canyon's mysticism. I tried to write it and I couldn't, and I tried to paint it, and I couldn't. And then one day my mother said to me, 'Diana, nobody can interpret Indian or Canyon philosophy. Take your camera and let the naked truth tell the story!'"
Diana paused. "I'm not clever at talking. I'm afraid I've given you no real idea of my purpose."
"One gets your purpose very clearly, when one recalls your Death and the Navajo, for instance, eh, Huntingdon?"
"Yes, Mr. President!"
"I suppose the two leading Indian ethnologists are Arkwind and Sherman, of the Smithsonian, are they not, Miss Allen?" asked the President.
"Oh, without doubt! And they have been very kind to me."
The President nodded. "They both tell me that your work is of extraordinary value. They tell me that you have actually photographed ceremonies so secret, so mystical, that they themselves had only heard vaguely of their existence. And not only, they say, have you photographed them, but you have produced works of art, pictures 'pregnant with celestial fire.'"
Diana's cheeks were a deep crimson. "Oh, I deserve so little credit, after all!" she exclaimed. "I was born in the midst of these things. And the Indians love me for my old nurse's sake! But human nature is weak and what you tell me makes me very happy, sir."
The men glanced at each other and smiled.
"Suppose, Miss Allen," said the President, "that you had the means to outfit an expedition. How long would it take you to complete the entire collection you have in mind?"
Diana's eyes widened. "Why, I could do nothing at all with an expedition! I simply wander about canyon and desert, sometimes with old nurse Na-che, sometimes alone. The Indians have always known me. I'm as much a part of their lives as their own daughters. I—I believe much of their inner hidden religion and so—oh, Mr. President, an expedition would be absurd, for me!"
"Well, then, without an expedition?" insisted the President.
Diana sighed. "You see, I'm not able to give all my time to the work. Mother died five years ago, and father is lonely and, while he thinks his little income is enough for both of us, it's enough only if I stay at home and play about the desert with my camera, cheaply as I do, and keep the house. It does not permit me to leave home. It seems to me, that working as I have in the past, it would take me at least ten years more to complete my work."
"The patience of the artist! It always astounds me!" exclaimed the President. "Miss Allen, I am not a rich man, but I have some wealthy friends. I have one friend in particular, a self-made man, of enormous wealth. The interest he and I have in common is American history in all its aspects. It seems to me that you are doing a truly important work. I want you to let this friend of mine fund you so that you may give all your time to your photography."
"Oh, Mr. President, I don't need funds!" protested Diana. "There is no hurry. This is my life work. Let me take a life-time for it, if necessary."
"That is all very well, Miss Allen, but what if you die, before you have finished? No one could complete your work because no one has your peculiar combination of information and artistic ability. People like you, my dear, belong not to themselves, but to the country."
Enoch spoke suddenly. "Why not arrange the matter with the Indian
Bureau, Mr. President?"
"Why not arrange it with the Circumlocution Office!" exclaimed the President. "I'm surprised at you, Huntingdon! You know what the budget and red tape of Washington does to a temperament like Miss Allen's. On the other hand, here is my friend, who would give her absolutely free rein and take an intense pride in providing the money."
Diana laughed. "You speak, sir, as if I needed some vast fund. It costs a dollar a day in the desert to keep a horse and another dollar to keep a man. Camera plates and clothing—why a hundred dollars a month would be luxury! And I don't need help, truly I don't! The mere fact of your interest is help enough for me."
"A hundred dollars a month for your expenses," said the President, making a memorandum in his notebook, "and what is your time worth?"
"My time? You mean what would I charge somebody for doing this work? Why, Mr. President, this is not a job! It's an avocation! I wouldn't take money for it. It's a labor of love."
The chief executive suddenly rose and Diana, rising too, was surprised at the look that suddenly burned in the hawk-like eyes.
"You are an unusual woman, Miss Allen! Your angle on life is one seldom found in Washington." He took a restless turn up and down the room, glanced at Enoch, who stood beside the desk, utterly absorbed in contemplation of Diana's protesting eyes, then said, "This friend of mine is a disappointed man. He had believed that in amassing a great fortune he would find satisfaction. He has found that money of itself is dust and ashes and it is too late for him to take up a new work. Miss Allen, I too am a disappointed man. I had believed that the President of a great nation was a full man, a contented man. I find myself an automaton, whirled about by the selfish desires of a politically stupid and indifferent constituency. One of the few consolations I find in my high office is that once in a while I come upon some one who is contributing something permanent to this nation's real advancement, and I am able to help that person. Miss Allen, will you not share your great good fortune with my friend and me?"
"Gladly!" exclaimed Diana quickly. Then she added, with a little laugh, "I think I understand now, why you are President of the United States!"
Enoch and the President joined in the laugh, and Diana was still smiling when they descended the steps to the waiting carriage. But the smile faded with a sudden thought.
"The President mustn't think I will take more than expense money!" she exclaimed.
Enoch laughed again as he replied, "I don't think that need bother you,
Miss Allen. I imagine a yearly sum will be placed at your disposal.
You will use what you wish."
Diana shook her head uneasily. "I don't more than half like the idea.
But the President made it very difficult to refuse."
Enoch nodded. The carriage stopped before the Willard Hotel. "Miss
Allen, will you lunch with me?" he asked.
Diana hesitated. "I'll be late getting back to the office," she said.
"I'll ask Watkins not to dock you," said Enoch soberly.
"Docking my salary," touching Enoch's proffered hand lightly as she sprang to the curb, "would be almost like taking something from nothing. I've never lunched in the Willard, Mr. Secretary."
"The Johnstown lunch still holds sway, I suppose!" said Enoch, following Diana down the stairs to Peacock Row.
They were a rather remarkable pair together. At least the occupants of the Row evidently felt so, for there was a breathless craning of necks and a hush in conversations as they passed, Diana, with her heart-searching beauty, Enoch with his great height and his splendid, rugged head. The head waiter did not actually embrace Enoch in welcoming him, but he managed to convey to the dining-room that here was a personal and private god of his own on whom the public had the privilege of gazing only through his generosity. Finally he had them seated to his satisfaction in the quietest and most conspicuous corner of the room.
"Now, my dear Mr. Secretary, what may we give you?" he asked, rubbing his hands together.
Enoch glanced askance at Diana, who shook her head. "This is entirely out of my experience, Mr. Secretary," she said.
"Gustav," said Enoch, "it's not yet one o'clock. We must leave here at five minutes before two. Something very simple, Gustav." He checked several items on the card and gave it to the head waiter with a smile.
Gustav smiled too. "Yes, Mr. Secretary!" he exclaimed, and disappeared.
"And that's settled," said Enoch, "and we can forget it. Miss Allen, when shall you go back to the Canyon?"
"Why," answered Diana, looking a little startled, "not till I've finished the work for Mr. Watkins, and that will take six months, at least."
"I think the President's idea will be that you must get to your own work, at once. Some one else can carry on Watkins' researches."
"I ought to do some studying in the Congressional library," protested
Diana. "Don't you think Washington can endure me a few months longer,
Mr. Secretary?"
"Endure you!" Enoch's voice broke a little, and he gave Diana a glance in which he could not quite conceal the anguish.
A sudden silence fell between the two that was broken by the waiter's appearance with the first course. Then Diana said, casually:
"My father is going to be very happy when I write him about this. Do you remember him at all clearly, Mr. Secretary?"
"Yes," replied Enoch. Then with a quick, direct look, he asked, "Did your father, ever give you the details of his experience with me in the Canyon?"
Diana's voice was low but very steady as she replied, "Yes, Mr. Secretary. He told me long ago, when you made your famous Boyhood on the Rack speech in Congress. It was the first word he had heard of you in all the years and he was deeply moved."
"I'm glad he told you," said Enoch. "I'm glad, because I'd like to ask you to be my friend, and I would want the sort of friend you would make to know the worst as well as the best about me."
"If that is the worst of you—" Diana began quickly, then paused. "As father told me, it was a story of a boy's suffering and the final triumph of his mind and his body."
Enoch stared at Diana with astonishment in every line of his face.
Then he sighed. "He couldn't have told you all," he muttered.
"Yes, he did, all! And nothing, not even what the President said to-day, can mean as much to me as your asking me to be your friend."
Enoch continued to stare at the lovely, tender face opposite him.
Diana smiled. "Don't look so incredulous, Mr. Secretary! It's not polite. You are a very famous person. I am nobody. We are lunching together in a wonderful hotel. I don't even vaguely surmise the names of the things we are eating. Don't look at me doubtingly. Look complacent because you can give a lady so much joy."
Enoch laughed with a quick relief that made his cheeks burn. "And so you are nobody! Curious, then, that you should have impressed yourself on me so deeply even when you were a child!"
It was Diana's turn to laugh. "Oh, come, Mr. Secretary! Of course I don't recall it myself, but Dad has always said that you were bored to death at having a small girl taking the trail with you."
"Do you remember that your mule slipped on the home trail and that I saved your life?" demanded Enoch.
Diana shook her head. "I was too small and there were too many canyon trips and too many tourists. I wish—"
She did not finish her sentence, but Enoch said, with a thread of earnestness in his deep voice that made Diana look at him keenly, "I wish you did remember!"
There was a moment's silence, then Enoch went on, "Shall you carry on your work with the Indians alone as you always have done? I believe I can quite understand your father's uneasiness."
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Diana, glad of an opportunity to redirect the conversation. "Just as I always have done. I shall have no trouble unless I get soft, living at the Johnstown Lunch! Then I may have to waste time till I get fit again. Have you ever lived on the trail, excepting on your trip to the Grand Canyon, Mr. Secretary?"
"Yes, in Canada and Maine, while I was in college. I used to tutor rich boys, and they had glorious summers, lucky kids! But since getting into national politics, I've had no time for real play."
"Some day," said Diana, "you ought to get up an outfit and go down the
Colorado from the Green River to the Needles. That's a real adventure!
Only a few men have done it since the Powell expeditions."
Enoch's eyes brightened. "I know! Some day, perhaps I shall, if Jonas will let me! How long do you suppose such a trip would take?"
Diana plunged into a description of a recent expedition down the canyons of the Colorado, and she managed to keep the remainder of the luncheon conversation on this topic. But as far as Enoch was concerned, Diana's effort was merely a conversational detour. The luncheon finished and the Gulf of California safely reached, he said as he handed Diana into the carriage:
"I've never had a friendship with a woman before," he said. "What do I do next?"
Diana sighed, while her lips curled at the corners. "Well, Mr. Secretary, I think the next move is to think the matter over for a few days, quietly and alone."
"Do you?" Enoch smiled enigmatically. "I don't know that it's safe for me to rely on your experience after all!" But he said no more.
Enoch spent the evening in his living-room with Señor Juan Cadiz and a small, lean, brown man in an ill-fitting black suit. The latter did not speak English, and Señor Cadiz acted as interpreter. The stranger was uneasy and suspicious, until the very last of the evening. Then, after a long half hour spent in silent scowling while he stared at Enoch and listened to the Secretary's replies to Cadiz's eager questions, he suddenly burst into a passionate torrent of Spanish. A look of great relief came to Cadiz's face, as he said to Enoch:
"Now he says he trusts you and will tell you the names of the Americans who are paying him."
Enoch began to jot down notes. When Cadiz's translation was finished
Enoch said:
"This in brief, then, is the situation. A group of Americans own vast oil fields in Mexico. They have enormous difficulty policing and controlling the fields. The Mexican method of concession making is exceedingly expensive and uncertain. They wish the United States to take Mexico over, either through actual conquest or by mandate. They have hired a group of bandits to keep trouble brewing until the United States is forced by England, Germany, or France, to interfere. This group of men is partly German though all dwell in the United States. Your friend here, and several of his associates, if I personally swear to take care of them, will give me information under oath whenever I wish."
"Yes! Yes! Yes! That is the story!" cried Señor Cadiz. "Oh, Mr. Secretary, if you could only undo the harm that your cursed American method of making the public opinion has done, both here and in Mexico. Why should neighbors hate each other? Mr. Secretary, tell these Americans to get out of Mexico and stay out! We are foolish in many ways, but we want to learn to govern ourselves. There will be much trouble while we learn but for God's sake, Mr. Secretary, force American money to leave us alone while we struggle in our birth throes!"
Enoch stood up to his great height, tossing the heavy copper-colored hair off his forehead. He looked at the two Mexicans earnestly, then he said, holding out his hand, "Señor Cadiz, I'll help you to the best of my ability. I believe in you and in the ultimate ability of your country to govern itself. Now will you let me make an appointment for you with the Secretary of State? Properly, you know, you should have gone to him with this."
The Mexican shook his head. "No! No! Please, Mr. Secretary! We do not know him well. He has shown no willingness to understand us. You! you are the one we believe in! We have watched you for years. We know that you are honest and disinterested."
"But I shall have to give both the President and the Secretary of State this information," insisted Enoch.
"That is in your hands," said Señor Cadiz.
"Then," Enoch nodded as Jonas appeared with the inevitable tinkling glasses, "remain quietly in Washington until you hear from me again."
Jonas held the door open on the departing callers with disapproval in every line of his face.
"How come that colored trash to be setting in the parlors of the government, boss?" asked he.
"They are Mexicans, Jonas," replied Enoch.
"Just a new name for niggers, boss," snapped Jonas, following Enoch up the stairs. "Don't you trust any colored man that ain't willing to call hisself black."
Enoch laughed and settled himself to an entry in the journal.
"This was the happiest day of my life, Diana. We are going to be great friends, are we not! And the philosophers tell us that friendship is the most soul-satisfying of all human relationships. I have been very vacillating in my attitude to you, since you came to Washington. But I cannot lose the feeling that those wise, wistful eyes of yours have seen my trouble and understood. I wonder how soon I can see you again. I'm rather proud of my behavior to-day, Diana, dearest."