So, presently, in furs, and surrounded by lunch baskets and thermos bottles, we set out for the mountains in his large six-cylinder machine. Emerging from the city, and taking the macadamized road which leads to Golden, we had our first uninterrupted view of the full sweep of that serrated mountain wall, visible for almost a hundred miles north of Denver, and a hundred south; a solid, stupendous line, flashing as though the precious minerals had been coaxed out to coruscate in the warm surface sunshine. There was something operatic in that vast and splendid spectacle. I felt that the mountains and the sky formed the back drop in a continental theater, the stage of which is made up of thousands of square miles of plains. Striking a pleasant pace we sped toward the barrier as though meaning to dash ourselves against it; for it seemed very near, and our car was like some great moth fascinated by the flash of ice and snow. However, as is usual where the air is clear and the altitude great, the eye is deceived as to distances in Colorado, and the foothills, which appear to be not more than three or four miles distant from Denver, are in reality a dozen miles away. Denver has many stock stories to illustrate that point. It is related that strangers sometimes start to walk to the mountains before breakfast, and the tale is told of one man who, having walked for hours, and thus discovered the illusory effect of the clear mountain air, was found undressing by a four-foot irrigation ditch, preparatory to swimming it, having concluded that, though it looked narrow, it was, nevertheless in reality a river. Nor is optical illusion regarding distances the only quality contained in Denver air. Denver and Colorado Springs are of course famous resorts for persons with weak lungs, but one need not have weak lungs to feel the tonic effect of the climate. Denver has little rain and much sunshine. Her winter air seems actually to hold in solution Colorado gold. My companion and I found it difficult to get to sleep at night because of the exhilarating effect of the air, but we would awaken in the morning after five or six hours' slumber, feeling abnormally lively. I spoke about that to a gentleman who was a member of our automobile mountain party. "There's no doubt," he replied, as we bowled along, "that this altitude affects the nerves. Even animals feel it. I have bought a number of eastern show horses and brought them out here, and I have found that horses which were entirely tractable in their habitual surroundings, would become unmanageable in our climate. Even a pair of Percherons which were perfectly placid in St. Louis, where I got them, stepped up like hackneys when they reached Denver.