Her answer presented an alluring lead for him to say more, but before he could speak, even if minded to do it, she went on:
“This has been a pleasant experience, this camping in the clean, unused country, and it would be a sort of Persian poet existence if we could go on with it always; but of course we can’t.”
“It isn’t all summer and fair skies here,” he reminded her, “any more than it is in–well, Persia. Twenty below in winter sometimes, Smith said. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “But it seems impossible.”
“You wouldn’t believe this little river could turn into a wild and savage torrent, either, a few hundred yards along, if you had nothing to judge it by but this quiet stretch,” he returned. “But listen to it down there, crashing against the rocks!”
“There’s no news of that rash man who went into the cañon for the newspaper?” Agnes asked.
“He must have lodged in there somewhere; they haven’t picked him up on the other side,” he said, a thoughtful abstraction over him.
“I hope you’ve given up the thought of trying to explore it?” 98
“I haven’t thought much about it lately,” he replied; “but I’m of the same opinion. I believe the difficulties of the cañon are greatly exaggerated. In fact, as I told you before, the reward posted by that newspaper looks to me like easy money.”
“It wouldn’t pay you if the reward were ten times as large,” she declared with a little argumentative heat.