Arizona -- Fiction; Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Fiction; Western stories
Agnew and Curly played poker all day long. Jonas and Na-che found
endless small tasks around the camp that required long consultations
between them and much laughter. When Enoch returned after breakfast
from a languid inspection of the Ida, Diana was not to be seen. She
had gone out to get some quail, Na-che said. She returned in an hour
or so, with a good bag of rabbit and birds.
"To-morrow, that will be my job," said Enoch.
"If she wouldn't let me go, she mustn't let you!" called Curly, from
his poker game, under the trees.
"Yes, I'll let any of you take it over, to-morrow," replied Diana,
giving Na-che gun and bag. "To-morrow, Na-che and I turn the rescue
mission over to you men and start for Bright Angel."
"Oh, where's your heart, Miss Allen!" cried Agnew. "Aren't you going
to wait to learn what the doctor says about Milton?"
"And Diana," urged Enoch, "Jonas and I want to go up to Bright Angel
with you and Na-che. Won't you wait a day longer, just till we're a
little more fit?"
Diana, in her worn corduroy habit, her soft hat pulled well over her
great eyes, looked from Agnew to Enoch, smiled and did not reply.
Enoch waited impatiently without the door while she made a call on
Milton.
"Diana!" he exclaimed, when she came out, "aren't you going to talk to
me even? Do come down by the Ida and see if we can't be rid of this
horde of people for a while."
"I've been wanting to see just how badly you'd treated the poor old
boat," said Diana, following Enoch toward the shore.
But Enoch had not the slightest intention of holding an inquest on the
Ida. In the shade of a gnarled cedar to which the boat was tied as a
precaution against high water, he had placed a box. Thither he led
Diana.
"Do sit down, Diana, and let me sit here at your feet. I'll admit it
should be unexpected joy enough just to find you here. But I'm greedy.
I want you to myself, and I want to tell you a thousand things."
"All right, Judge, begin," returned Diana amiably, as she clasped her
knee with both hands and smiled at him. But Enoch could not begin,
immediately. Sitting in the sand with his back against the cedar he
looked out at the Colorado flowing so placidly, at the pale gray green
of the far canyon walls and a sense of all that the river signified to
him, all that it had brought to him, all that it would mean to him to
leave it and with it Diana,--Diana who had been his other self since he
was a lad of eighteen,--made him speechless for a time.
Diana waited, patiently. At last, Enoch turned to her, "All the things
I want to say most, can't be said, Diana!"
"Are you glad you took the trip down the river, Judge?"
"Glad! Was Roland glad he made his adventure in search of the Dark
Tower?"
"Yes, he was, only, Judge--"
Enoch interrupted. "Has our friendship grown less since we camped at
the placer mine?"
Diana flushed slightly and went on, "Only, Enoch, surely the end of
your adventure is not a Dark Tower ending!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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