Abroad At Home Part 36

"See how blue the plains are," said the Denver gentleman sweeping the landscape with his arm. "People compare them with the sea."

I did not wish to see how blue the plains were, but out of courtesy I looked. Then I turned my eyes away, hastily. The s.p.a.cious view did not strike me in the sense of beauty, but in the pit of the stomach. In looking away from the plains, I tried to do so without noticing the town below. I did not wish to contemplate that pointed tower, again. But a terrible curiosity drew my eyes down. Yes, there was Golden, looking like a toy village. And there was the tower, pointing up at me. I could not see the lightning rod now, but I knew that it was there. Again I looked up at the peaks.

For a time we rode on in silence. I noticed that the snow on the slope beside us, and in the road, was becoming deeper now, but it did not seem to daunt our powerful machine. Up, up we went without slackening our pace.

"Look!" exclaimed the Denver gentleman after a time. "You can see Denver now, just over the top of South Table Mountain."

Again I was forced to turn my eyes in the direction of the plains. Yes, there was Denver, looking like some dream island of Maxfield Parrish's in the sea of plain.

I tried to look away again at once, but the Denver man kept pointing and insisting that I see it all.

"South Table Mountain, over the top of which you are now looking," he said, "is the same hill we skirted in coming into Golden. We were at the bottom of it then. That will show you how we have climbed already."

"We must be halfway up by now," said my companion hopefully.

"Oh, no; not yet. We are only about--" There he broke off suddenly and clutched at the side of the tonneau. Our front wheels had slipped sidewise in the snow, upon a turn, and had brought us very near the edge. Again something drew my eyes to Golden. It was no longer a toy village; it was now a map. But the tower was still there. However far we drove we never seemed to get away from it.

Where the brilliant sunlight lay upon the snow, it was melting, but in shaded places it was dry as talc.u.m powder. Rounding another turn we came upon a place of deep shadow, where the riotous mountain winds had blown the dry snow into drifts. One after the other we could see them reaching away like white waves toward the next angle in the road.

My heart leaped with joy at the sight, and as I felt the restraining grip of the brakes upon our wheels, I blessed the elements which barred our way.

"Well," I cried to our host as the car stood still. "It has been a wonderful ride. I never thought we should get as far as this."

"Neither did I!" exclaimed my companion rising to his feet. "I guess I'll get out and stretch my legs while you turn around."

"So will I," I said.

Our host looked back at us.

"Turn around?" he repeated. "I'm not going to turn around."

My companion measured the road with his eye.

"It is sort of narrow for a turn, isn't it?" he said. "What will you do--back down?"

"Back nothing!" said our host "I'm going through."

The pioneer in him had spoken. His jaw was set. The joy that I had felt ebbed suddenly away. I seemed to feel it leaking through the soles of my feet. We had stopped in the shadow. It was cold there and the wind was blowing hard. I did not like that place, but little as I liked it, I fairly yearned to stop there.

I heard the gears click as they meshed. The car leaped forward, struck the drift, bounded into it with a drunken, slewing motion, penetrated for some distance and finally stopped, her headlights buried in the snow.

Again I heard a click as our host shifted to reverse. Then, with a furious spinning of wheels, which cast the dry snow high in air, we made a bouncing, backward leap and cleared the drift, but only to charge it again.

This time we managed to get through. Nor did we stop at that. Having pa.s.sed the first drift, we retained our momentum and kept on through those that followed, hitting them as a power dory hits succeeding waves in a choppy sea, churning our way along with a rocking, careening, crazy motion, now menaced by great boulders at the inside of the road, now by the deadly drop at the outside, until at last we managed, somehow, to navigate the turning, after which we stopped in a place comparatively clear of snow.

Our host turned to us with a smile.

"She's a good old snow-boat, isn't she?" he said.

With great solemnity my companion and I admitted that she was.

Even the Denver gentleman who occupied the tonneau with us, seemed somewhat shaken.

"Of course the snow will be worse farther up," he said to our host. "Do you think it is worth going on?"

"Of course it is," our host replied. "I want these boys to see the main range of the Rockies. That's what we came up for, isn't it?"

"Yes," said my companion, "but we wouldn't want you to spoil your car on our account."

It was an unfortunate remark.

"Spoil her!" cried our host. "Spoil this machine? You don't know her.

You haven't seen what she can do, yet. Just wait until we hit a real drift!"

The cigar which I had been smoking when I left Denver was still in my mouth. It had gone out long since, but I had been too much engrossed with other things to notice it. Instead of relighting it, I had been turning it over and over between my teeth, and now in an emotional moment, I chewed at it so hard that it sagged down against my chin. I removed it from my mouth, and tossed it over the edge. It cleared the road and sailed out into s.p.a.ce, down, down, down, turning over and over in the air, as it went. And as I watched its evolutions, my blood chilled, for I thought to myself that the body of a falling man would turn in just that way--that my body would be performing similar aerial evolutions, should our car slew off the road in the course of some mad charge against a drift.

I was by this time very definitely aware that I had my fill of winter motoring in the mountains. The mere reluctance I had felt as we began to climb had now developed into a pa.s.sionate desire to desist. I am no great pedestrian. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances the idea of climbing a mountain on foot would never occur to me. But now, since I could not turn back, since I must go to the top to satisfy my host, I fairly yearned to walk there. Indeed, I would have gladly crawled there on my hands and knees, through snowdrifts, rather than to have proceeded farther in that touring car.

Obviously, however, craft was necessary.

"I believe I'll get out and limber up a little," I said, rising from my seat.

My companions of the tonneau seemed to be of the same mind. All three of us alighted in the snow.

"How far is it to the top?" I asked our host.

"A couple of miles," he said.

"Is that all?" I replied. "Couldn't we walk it, then?"

I was touched by the avidity with which my two companions seized on the suggestion. Only our host objected.

"What's the matter?" he demanded in an injured tone. "Don't you think my car can make it? If you'll just get in again you'll soon see!"

"Heavens, no!" I answered. "That's not it. Of course we _know_ your car can do it."

"Yes; oh, yes, of course!" the other two chimed in.

"All I was thinking of," I added, "was the exercise."

"That's it," my companion cried. "Exercise. We haven't had a bit of exercise since we left New York."

"I need it, too!" put in the Denver man. "My wife says I'm getting fat."

"Oh, if it's exercise you want," said our host, "I'm with you."

Even the spirits of the chauffeur seemed to rise as his employer alighted.