Than prairie horizon high piled with clouded foam
His quickened yearning shall inspire old story
Of unbounded, deathless realms beyond the sunset—Home!
There were two of us, a prairie born tenderfoot in the person of a sixteen-year-old college sophomore and the writer. After months of anticipation and planning we hurried away at the close of the college term, leaving the prairies of Iowa to spend a short vacation in the mountains; and we arrived in Denver on a perfect, cloudless morning in June.
Since early daylight we had kept an eager watch to westward across the even plains to catch a first glimpse of the great Front Range of the Rocky Mountains with its covering of summer snow, and after making some purchases of camp supplies we climbed to Capitol Hill in Denver to see the foothills soften to purple and the snow fields melt to liquid gold as the crystal day turned to crimson glory with the setting of the sun.
This is the land that the sunset washes,