And over and about all his broken
thinking played an unceasing sense of loss. The public had invaded his
last privacy. The stronghold wherein a man fights his secret weakness
should be sacred. Not even a clergyman nor a wife should invade its
precincts uninvited. Enoch's inner sanctuary had been laid open to the
idle view of all the world. The newspaper reporter had pried where no
real man would pry. The Brown papers had published that from which a
decent editor would turn away for very compassion. Only a very dirty
man will with no excuse whatever wantonly and deliberately break
another man.
When toward sundown Enoch saw a thread of smoke rising far ahead of
him, again his first thought was to stop and make camp. He wished that
it were possible for him to spend the next few weeks without seeing a
white man. But he did not yield to the impulse and Pablo pushed on
steadily.
The camp was set in the shelter of a huge rock pile, purple, black,
yellow and crimson in color, with a single giant ocotilla growing from
the top. A man in overalls was bending over the fire, while another
was bringing a dripping coffee pot from a little spring that bubbled
from under the rocks. A number of burros were grazing among the cactus
roots.
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