After the house was done the General thought the roof lacked just the proper note of color, so he caused it to be torn off, and replaced with tiles from an old church in England. Perhaps the most splendid thing about the place is an enormous hall, paneled in oak, with a gallery and a beamed barrel ceiling, but there are other features which make the house unusual. On the roof is a great Krupp bell, which can be heard for miles, and which was used to call the General's guests home for meals. There is a power plant, a swimming pool, a complicated device for recording meteorological conditions in the mountains. And of course there are fireplaces in which great logs were burned; yet there are no chimneys on the house. The General did not want chimneys issuing smoke into his cañon, so he simply did not have them. Instead, he constructed a tunnel which runs up the mountainside behind the house and takes care of the smoke, emitting it at an unseen point, far above. Meanwhile the General played Santa Claus to Colorado Springs, giving her parks and boulevards. One day, while riding on his place, he was thrown from his horse and a vertebra was fractured, with the result that he was permanently prostrated. After that he lay for some time like a wounded eagle in his eyrie, his mind as active as ever. He was still living in 1907, when the time for the annual reunion of his old regiment came around. Unable to go East, he invited the remaining veterans to come to him by special train, as his guests. So they came--the remnants of that old cavalry regiment, and passed in review, for the last time, before their Colonel, lying helpless with a broken neck. [Illustration: On the road to Cripple Creek--We were always turning, always turning upward]