One readily understands in the mountains how the old myths of the gods and giants arose. Why should not the gods have dwelt on Olympus--and here in the Rockies as well? What place more fitting? A setting, stern and heroic, and not altogether hospitable to the puny race of man. There are places of such sublimity and desolation, you feel you have looked in upon Olympus when the gods were away, and that any moment they may return with their thunderbolts. Wandering alone in these regions is like an excursion into legendary lore--and one would better wander alone, for in our deepest moments the mountains are company enough. One companion you may have--should have, in the mountains--a horse, a kindly and sociable animal, who knows your foibles as you know his, and is willing to humor them. He must be a trail-horse, sure-footed and not finicky about fording mountain streams. If you do not come into some renewed sense of freedom, if the solitude does not speak to you, if you do not become better acquainted with yourself, it is because you really have not surrendered to the genius of the hills but have come preoccupied with other and lesser things. Thoreau did not so greatly exaggerate when he said one must make his will and settle his affairs before he was ready to walk. One does not tire of sauntering through the mountains. They seem always to invite. Mystery lurks in the ravines. There is no sound but the distant tinkle of a cow-bell, which is pleasant music. Over the ranges and the velvet folds of the _mesa_ the lights and shadows play like a passing smile. Though the ideal eludes on a nearer view, we nevertheless derive some larger sense of freedom from personal contact with the range. The foot must know the trail; and this association yields that which no road can ever give--a good understanding with the mountain itself. As far as the eye can see, neither fence, nor house, nor road; only the somber forest, the naked ledge. While this tramping over trails hardens the muscles, it toughens also the sinews of the mind. One has mountain thoughts as well as mountain air. The single drop of aboriginal blood tingles in the veins, while the tendency is strong to revert to the wild and to a more rude and savage life. There is experienced some furtive desire, as of a wild animal, to scurry away into these grim ravines, or to leap from crag to crag with the bighorn,--presumably a sort of mountain madness, which is dispelled on the descent to the village.