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.
"I think a lot of the agitation we have out here comes from the same thing. Take our passionate political quarreling, or our newspapers and the way they abuse each other. Or look at Judge Lindsey. I think the altitude is partly accountable for him, as well as for a lot of things the rest of us do. Of course it's a good thing in one way: it makes us energetic; but on the other hand, we are likely to have less balance than people who don't live a mile up in the air."
As we talked, our car breezed toward the foothills. Presently we entered the mouth of a narrow cañon and, after winding along rocky slopes, emerged upon the town of Golden.
Golden, now known principally as the seat of the State School of Mines, used to be the capital of Colorado. Spread out upon a prairie the place might assume an air of some importance, but stationed as it is upon a slope, surrounded by gigantic peaks, it seems a trifling town clinging to the mountainside as a fly clings to a horse's back.
The slope upon which Golden is situated is a comparatively gentle one, but directly back of the city the angle changes and the surface of the world mounts abruptly toward the heavens, which seem to rest like a great coverlet upon the upland snows.
Rivulets from the melting white above, were running through the streets of Golden, turning them to a sea of mud, through which we plowed powerfully on "third." As we passed into the backyard of Golden, the mountain seemed to lean out over us.
"That's our road, up there," remarked the Denver gentleman who sat in the tonneau, between my companion and myself. He pointed upward, zig-zagging with his finger.
We gazed at the mountainside.