“Oh, Enoch!  What a splendid suggestion!  You’ve no idea how I shall enjoy making the collection for you.  It will take several months to complete it, you know.”

“Don’t wait to complete the collection.  Send the prints one at a time, as you finish them.  Send them to my house, not my office.”

Soft voices sounded from the camping place.  “We must go back,” said Diana.

“Another evening gone, forever,” said Enoch.  “How many more have we, Diana?”

“Three or four.  One never knows, in the Canyon country.”

They moved slowly, hand in hand, toward the firelight.  Just before they came within its zone, Enoch lifted Diana’s hand to his lips.

“Good night, Diana!”

“Good night, Enoch!”

Jonas and Na-che, standing by the fire like two brown genii of the desert, looked up smiling as the two appeared.

“Ain’t they a handsome pair, Na-che?” asked Jonas, softly.  “Ain’t he a grand looking man?”

Na-che assented.  “I wish I could get each of ’em to wear a love ring.  I could get two the best medicine man in the desert country made.”

“Where are they?” demanded Jonas eagerly.

“Up near Bright Angel.”

“You get ’em and I’ll pay for ’em,” urged Jonas.

“We can’t buy ’em!  They got to be taken.”

“Well, how come you to think I couldn’t take ’em, woman?  You show me where they are.  I’ll do the rest.”

“All right,” said Na-che.  “Diana, don’t you feel tired?”

“Tired enough to go to bed, anyway,” replied Diana.  “It’s going to be a very cold night.  Be sure that you and the Judge have plenty of blankets, Jonas.  Good night!” and she disappeared into the tent.

The night was stinging cold.  Ice formed on the rain pools and they ate breakfast with numbed hands.  As usual, however, the mercury began to climb with the sun and when at mid-morning, they entered a huge purple depression in the desert, coats were peeled and gloves discarded.

The depression was an ancient lava bed, deep with lavender dust that rose chokingly about them.  There was a heavy wind that increased as they rode deeper into the great bowl and this, with the swirling sand, made the noon meal an unpleasant duty.  But, in spite of these discomforts, Enoch managed to ride many miles, during the day, with his horse beside Diana’s.  And he talked to her as though he must in the short five days make up for a life time of reticence.

He told her of the Seatons and all that John Seaton had done for him.  He told her of his years of dreaming of the Canyon and of his days as Police Commissioner.  He told of dreams he had had as a Congressman and as a Senator and of the great hopes with which he had taken up the work of the Secretary of the Interior.  And finally, as the wind began to lessen with the sinking sun, and the tired horses slowed to the trail’s lifting from the bowl, he told her of his last speaking trip, of its purpose and of its results.