“The boy’s worth saving!” Frank lighted his pipe thoughtfully.  “There’s a power of will there for good or evil that can’t be ignored.  And I have faith in any one the Canyon gets a real grip on.  It sure has got this boy.  I never saw a more marked case.”

The lawyer nodded and both men sat smoking, their eyes on the distant rim.

BOOK II

THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR

CHAPTER III

TWENTY-TWO YEARS LATER

“It sometimes seemed to me that the Colorado said as it rushed through the Canyon, ‘Nothing matters!  Nothing!  Nothing!’”—­Enoch’s Diary.

One burning morning in July, Jonas, in a cool gray seersucker suit, his black face dripping with perspiration, was struggling with the electric fan in the private office of the Secretary of the Interior.  The windows were wide open and the hideous uproar of street traffic filled the room.  It was a huge, high-ceilinged apartment, with portraits of former Secretaries on the walls.  The Secretary’s desk, a large, polished conference table, and various leather chairs, with a handsome Oriental rug, completed the furnishings.

As Jonas struggled vainly with the fan, a door from the outer office opened and a young man appeared with the day’s mail.  Charley Abbott was nearing thirty but he looked like a college boy.  He was big and broad and blonde, with freckles disporting themselves frankly on a nose that was still upturned.  His eyes were set well apart and his lips were frank.  He placed a great pile of opened letters on Enoch’s desk.

“Better peg along, Jonas,” he said.  “The Secretary’s due in a minute!”

Jonas gathered the fan to his breast and scuttled out the side door as Enoch Huntingdon came in at the Secretary’s private entrance.

The years had done much for Enoch.  He stood six feet one in his socks.  He was not heavy but still had something of the rangy look of his boyhood.  He was big boned and broad chested.  College athletics had developed his lungs and flattened his shoulder blades.  His hair was copper-colored, vaguely touched with gray at the temples and very thick and unruly.  His features were still rough hewn but time had hardened their immaturity to a rugged incisiveness.  His cheek bones were high and his cheeks were slightly hollowed.  His eyes were a burning, brilliant blue, deep set under overhanging brows.  His mouth was large, thin lipped and exceedingly sensitive; the mouth of the speaker.  He wore a white linen suit.

“Good morning, Mr. Abbott,” he said, dropping his panama hat on a corner of the conference table.

“Good morning, Mr. Secretary!  I hope you are rested after yesterday.  Seems to me that was as hard a day as we ever had.”

Enoch dropped into his chair.  “Was it really harder, Abbott, or was it this frightful weather?”