"Well, it is wide—that is, for a mountain road. You can't expect a mountain road to be as wide as a city boulevard, you know."
"But suppose we should meet somebody," I put in. "How would we pass?"
"There's room enough to pass," said the Denver gentleman. "You've only got to be a little careful. But there is no chance of our meeting any one. Most people wouldn't think of trying this road in winter because of the snow."
"Do you mean that the snow makes it dangerous?" asked my companion.
"Some people seem to think so," said the Denver gentleman.
Meanwhile the gears had been singing their shrill, incessant song as we mounted, swiftly. My seat was at the outside of the road. I turned my head in the direction of the plains. From where I sat the edge of the road was invisible. I had a sense of being wafted along through the air with nothing but a cushion between me and an abyss. I leaned out a little, and looked down at the wheel beneath me. Then I saw that several feet of pavement, lightly coated with snow, intervened between the tire, and the awful edge. Beyond the edge was several hundred feet of sparkling air, and beyond the air I saw the roofs of Golden.
"Ain't Nature wonderful!"
One of these roofs annoyed me. I do not know the nature of the building it adorned. It may have been a church, or a school, or a town hall. I only know that the building had a tower, rising to an acute point from which a lightning rod protruded like a skewer. When I first caught sight of it I shuddered and turned my eyes upward toward the mountain. I did not like to gaze up at the heights which we had yet to climb, but I liked it better on the whole than looking down into the depths below.