Enoch threw himself into the day’s work with burning intensity.  About three o’clock, he told Abbott to deny all visitors that he might devote himself to an Alaskan report.

“Mr. Milton just rushed in.  Will you let him have a moment?” asked Charley.

“Yes, but—­” here Milton came in unceremoniously.

“Mr. Huntingdon,” he said, “I’ve just finished lunching with Miss Allen.  We are both nearly frantic over this morning’s paper.  You must let us publish the truth.”

“No,” thundered Enoch.  “You know the Brown papers.  If they discovered what Miss Allen did for us all at the Ferry, how she led me back to El Tovar, what would they do with it?”

Abbott looked from Enoch to Milton in astonishment.  Milton started to speak, but Enoch interrupted, “You are, of course, thinking that I should have thought of that long before, when I asked her to let me go back to El Tovar with her.  But I didn’t!  I had been in the Canyon long enough to have forgotten what could be made of my adventure by bad minds.  I was a cursed fool, moving in a fool’s paradise and I must take my punishment.  If ever—­”

Jonas opened the door from the outer office.  “The President, Mr. Secretary,” he said.

Enoch started toward the telephone, but Jonas spoke impatiently—­“No!  No! not that.”

“The President of what, Jonas!” asked Abbott.

Jonas lifted his chest and flung the door wide.  “The President of the United States of America,” he announced, and the President came in.

Enoch rose.  “Don’t let me disturb you, Mr. Secretary.  I can wait,” said the chief executive.

“We were quite finished, Mr. President.  May I, I wonder, introduce Mr. Milton to you, the geologist whom Brown said headed the drunken expedition down the Colorado.”

The President looked keenly at Milton as they shook hands.  “Mr. Huntingdon took great pains to deny that story, publicly,” he said.  “Can’t you persuade him, Mr. Milton, to do as much for himself, to-day.”

“That’s exactly why I’m here, Mr. President!” exclaimed Milton.  “But he’s absolutely obdurate!”

Jonas came into the room and spoke to Enoch softly.  “Mr. Fowler’s office is on the outside wire, Mr. Secretary.  I wouldn’t connect in here while the President was here.  Mr. Fowler wants to speak to you, hisself, before he catches a train.”

“I’ll go into your office to get it, Abbott,” said Enoch.  “May I detain you, a moment, Mr. President?  Mr. Fowler wants to speak to me.”

The President raised his eyebrows with a little smile.  “Yes, if you tell me what’s happened to Fowler.”

Enoch’s smile was twisted as he went out.  Milton immediately began to speak.

“Mr. President, can’t you make Mr. Huntingdon tell about his vacation?”

The chief executive shook his head.  “Perhaps it’s not best.  Perhaps he did have a lapse into his boyhood habits.  Not that it makes any difference to me.”