The railway enters the Ouray amphitheater from the west and stops--for the very good reason that it can go no farther!--but from the railway station a stage road climbs the precipitous eastern wall and leads on to Red Mountain, as through an Alpine pass. Over this divide I now planned to drive to Silverton, and thence to Durango by way of Las Animas Canon. Zulime, with an unquestioning faith in me--a faith which I now think of with wonder--agreed to this crazy plan. Her ignorance of the cold, the danger involved, made her girlishly eager to set forth. She was like a child in her reliance on my sagacity and skill. We left Ouray, at eight of a bitter morning, in a rude sleigh with only a couple of cotton quilts to defend us from the cold, and when, after a long climb up a wall of stupendous cliffs with roaring streams shouting from their icy beds upon our right, we entered an aisle of frosty pines edging an enormous ledge, where frozen rills hung in motionless cascades, Zulime, enraptured by the radiant avenues which opened out at every turn of our icy upward trail, became blind to all danger. The flaming, golden light flinging violet shadows, vivid as stains of ink along the crusted slopes, dazzled her, caused her to forget the icy wind or, at any rate, to patiently endure it. At Red Mountain, a mournful, half-buried, deserted mining town, we left our sleigh and stumbled into the dingy little railway station, so chilled, so cramped, that we could scarcely walk, and yet we did not regret our ride. However, we were glad of the warmth of the dirty little coach into which we climbed a few minutes later. It seemed delightfully safe to Zulime, and I was careful not to let her know that from this town the train descended of its own weight all the way to Silverton! Fortunately, nothing happened, and at Silverton we changed to a real train, with a real engine, and as we dropped into Las Animas Canon we left December behind. At six o'clock we emerged from the canon at Durango into genial September--or so it seemed after our day of midwinter in the heights. Next day we returned to Colorado Springs. Our stay in the mountains was at an end, but the memory of those burnished domes, those dark-hued forests, and the sound of those foaming streams, remain with us to this day.--All the way down the long slope to the Mississippi River, we reverted to this "circuit," recalling its most impressive moments, its noblest vistas. It had been for my bride a procession of wonders, a colossal pageant--to me it was a double satisfaction because of her delight. With a feeling that I had in some degree atoned for my parsimony in the matter of an engagement ring and for the drab prose of our marriage ceremony, I brought the first half of our wedding journey to a close in Chicago. I now looked forward to the meeting between my mother and her new daughter. This was, after all, the important part of my venture. Would my humble home content my artist bride?