“How do you know I haven’t seen them, Jonas?” asked Enoch quickly.

“Don’t I know every place you go, boss?  Didn’t you tell me that was my job, years ago?  How come you think I’d forget?” Jonas was eyeing the Secretary warily.  “Mr. Abbott, he’s got a bad case on that Miss Allen.  He’s give me at least a dollar’s worth of ten cent cigars lately so’s I’ll stand and smoke and let him talk to me about her.”

Enoch grunted.

“He says she—­” Jonas rambled on.

Enoch looked up quickly.  “I don’t want to hear it, Jonas.”  Jonas drew himself up stiffly.  The Secretary laid his own broad palm over the black hand that still held the handle of the water pitcher.  “Spare me that, old friend,” he said.

Jonas put his free hand on Enoch’s shoulder.  “Are you sure you’re right, boss?” he asked huskily.

“I know I’m right, Jonas.”

“Well, I don’t see it your way, boss, but what’s right for you is right for me.  Good night, sir,” and shaking his head, Jonas slowly left the room.

But Enoch was destined to see the pictures after all.  One day, after Cabinet meeting, the President, in his friendly way, clapped Enoch on the shoulder.

“First time in a great many years, Huntingdon, that the Indian Bureau has distinguished itself for anything but trouble!  I saw Miss Allen’s pictures last night.  My word!  What a sense of heat and peace and, yes, by jove, passion! those photographs tell.  The Bureau ought to own those pictures, old man.  Especially the huge enlargement of Bright Angel trail and the Navaho hunters.  Eh?”

“Well, to tell the truth, Mr. President,” said Enoch slowly, “I haven’t seen the pictures.”

“Not seen them!  Why some one said you discovered Miss Allen!”

“In a way I did, but I don’t deserve any credit for that.”

“Not if he saw her first!” exclaimed the Secretary of State, who had loitered behind the others.

The President nodded.  “She is very lovely.  I saw her at a distance, and I want to meet her.  Now, Mr. Huntingdon, it’s very painful for me to have to chide you for dereliction in office.  But a man who will neglect those pictures for the—­well, the coal fields of Alaska, should be dealt with severely.”

“Hear!  Hear!” cried the Secretary of State.

The President laughed.  “And so I must ask you, Mr. Huntingdon, to bring Miss Allen to see me, after you have gone carefully over the pictures.  Jokes aside, you know my keen interest in Indian ethnology?” Enoch nodded, and the President went on.  “If this girl has the brains and breadth of vision I’m sure she must have to produce a series of photographs like those, I want to know her and do what I can to push her work.  So neglect Mexico and Alaska for a little while, tomorrow, will you, Huntingdon?”

Enoch’s laughter was a little grim, but with a quick leap of his heart, he answered.  “A man can but obey the Commander in Chief, I suppose!”