"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?"