The shallows ended in a rapid which they shot without more than the usual difficulties.  They then had an hour of quiet rowing through gorges that grew more narrow and more dusky as they proceeded.  About four o’clock snow began to fall.  It was a light enough powder, at first, but shortly it thickened until it was impossible to guide the boats.  They edged in shore where a ledge overhanging a heap of broken rock offered a meager shelter.  Here they planned to spend the night.  The shore was too precipitous to beach the boats.  Much to Jonas’ sorrow, they could only anchor them before the ledge.  There was plenty of driftwood, and a brisk fire dispelled some of the discomfort of the snow, while a change to dry clothing did the rest.

To Enoch it was a strange evening.  The foolish quarrel between Harden and Forrester was sufficient to upset the equanimity of the whole group which before had seemed so harmonious.  The situation was keenly irritating to Enoch.  He wanted nothing to intrude on the wild beauty of the trip, save his own inward struggle.  The snow continued to fall long after the others had gone to sleep.  Enoch, with his diary on his knees, wrote slowly, pausing long between sentences to watch the snow and to listen to the solemn rush of waters so close to his feet.

“I’ve been sitting before the fire, Diana, thinking of our various conversations.  How few they have been, after all!  And I’ve concluded that in your heart you must look on me as presumptuous and stupid.  You never have given me the slightest indication that you cared for me.  You have been, even in the short time we have known each other, a gallant and tender friend.  A wonderful friend!  And you are as unconscious of my passion for you, of the rending agony of my giving you up as the Canyon is of the travail of Milton and his little group.  And I’m glad that this is so.  If I can go on through life feeling that you are serene and happy it will help me to keep my secret.  Strange that with every natural inclination within me to be otherwise, I should be the custodian of ugly secrets; secrets that are only the uglier because they are my own.  It seems a sacrilegious thing to add my beautiful love for you to the sinister collection.  But it must be so.

“I am so glad that I am going to see you so soon after I emerge from the Canyon.  There will be much to tell you.  I thought I knew men.  But I am learning them anew.  And I thought I had a fair conception of the wonders of the Colorado.  Diana, it is beyond human imagination to conceive or human tongue to describe.”

Enoch had looked forward with eager pleasure to seeing the Canyon snowbound.  But he was doomed to disappointment.  During the night the snow turned to rain.  The rain, in turn, ceased before dawn and the camp woke to winding mists that whirled with the wind up and out of the Canyon top.  The going, during the morning, offered no great difficulties.  But toward noon, as the boats rounded a curve, a reef presented itself with the water of the river boiling threateningly on either side.  As the Canyon walls offered no landing it was necessary to make one here and Forrester volunteered to jump with a rope to a flat rock which projected from the near end of the reef.