"Yes, Mr. Secretary," exclaimed Jonas, disappearing out the door. He returned shortly to report that mail had arrived for Judge Smith, and that it was safely locked away.
Enoch had no engagement that evening. When he had finished his solitary dinner he went to his room and took out of the desk drawer a large document envelope and a letter. The letter he opened.
"My dear Judge: Forrester and I have just completed a sad bit of work, the taking of poor Curly's body back to Arizona for burial. Soon after you left, we took Milton over to Wilson's ranch and left Ag to look out for him. He's coming along fine, by the way. We wired our dilemma to our Chief in Washington and he told us to go into southern Texas and investigate some conditions there for him. To our surprise, Curly wanted to go along, as soon as he found we were later going into Mexico to an old stamping ground of his. Well, we had a great time on the Border. It wasn't so bad until the hombres began to get nasty, and as you may recall, neither Curly nor my now good pal Forr stand well under sniping. It got so finally that we had to stand watch over our outfit at night, and Curly got a bullet in his bladder. He bled so we couldn't move him and Forr went out, thirty miles, after a doctor. While we waited, Curly got me to set down the stuff I am sending you under separate cover. He also made his will and left you his mining claims, all merely prospects so far. He says you know how he came to feel as he does about Brown and Fowler. However that may be, it certainly is the dirtiest story I ever heard one man tell on others and, dying though he was, I begged Curly to let me tear the paper up and let the story go into the grave with him. But he held me to my promise, so I'm sending it to you, with this apology for contaminating either of us with the dope. Poor old Curly! He was a man who'd been a little embittered by some early trouble, but he was a good scout, for all that.
"We all missed you and Jonas,—don't forget Jonas!—very much, after you left. Milton said half a dozen times that when he gets in shape to go on with the work in the spring, he was going to try to persuade you to finish the trip with us. So say we all! With best wishes, sincerely yours, C. L. Harden."
After Enoch had finished Harden's letter he replaced it in its envelope slowly and dropped it into the desk drawer. Next, as slowly, he picked up the bulkier envelope and placed it on edge on the mantel under the Moran painting. Then he began to walk the floor.
He knew that, in that dingy envelope, lay the whip by which he could drive Brown to public apology. As far as fearing any publicity with which Brown could retaliate, Enoch felt immune. He believed that he had sounded the uttermost depths of humiliation. And at first he gloated over the thought that now Brown could be made to suffer as he had suffered. He would give the story to the newspapers, exactly as it had come to him. And what a setting! Curly shot from ambush, by creatures, it was highly probable, who were ignorantly actuated by Brown's own crooked Mexican policy. Curly flinging, with his dying hands, the boomerang that was to strike Brown down. That incidentally it would pull Fowler down, moved Enoch little. Fowler too would be hoist by his own petard.
For a long hour Enoch paced the floor. Then he came to a sudden pause before the mantel and turned on the light above the painting of Bright Angel trail. Outside the room sounded the clatter of Washington's streets. Enoch did not hear it. Once more a passionate, sullen boy, he was clinging to his mule on the twisting trail. Once more swept over him the horror of the Canyon and of human beings that had tortured the soul of the boy, Enoch, on that first visit into the Canyon's depths. The sweat started to his forehead and, as he stared, he grasped the mantel with both hands. Then he picked up the envelope. His hand shook as he inserted a finger under the flap, lifting his eyes as he did so, once more to the painting.
He paused. Unearthly calm, drifting mists, colors too ephemeral, too subtle for words—drawn in the Canyon!
The lift of the Ida under his knees, the eager welter of the whirlpool, the sting of the icy Colorado dragging him under, the flash of Diana's face and his winning fight with death.
The chaos of the river and two tiny figures staggering hour after hour over the hopeless, impossible chasms and buttes; Harden going to the rescue of Forrester.