Peaks Gleamed In Living Light; Canyons Lay In Depths Of
Purple Shade; 100 Miles Away Pike's Peak Rose A Lump
Of blue, and
over all, through that glorious afternoon, a veil of blue
spiritualized without dimming the outlines of that
Most glorious
range, making it look like the dreamed-of mountains of "the land
which is very far off," till at sunset it stood out sharp in
glories of violet and opal, and the whole horizon up to a great
height was suffused with the deep rose and pure orange of the
afterglow. It seemed all dream-like as we passed through the
sunlit solitude, on the right the prairie waves lessening towards
the far horizon, while on the left they broke in great snowy
surges against the Rocky Mountains. All that day we neither saw
man, beast, nor bird. "Jim" was silent mostly. Like all true
children of the mountains, he pined even when temporarily absent
from them.
At sunset we reached a cluster of houses called Namaqua, where,
to my dismay, I heard that there was to be a dance at the one
little inn to which we were going at St. Louis. I pictured to
myself no privacy, no peace, no sleep, drinking, low sounds, and
worse than all, "Jim" getting into a quarrel and using his
pistols. He was uncomfortable about it for another reason. He
said he had dreamt the night before that there was to be a dance,
and that he had to shoot a man for making "an unpleasant remark."
For the last three miles which we accomplished after sunset the
cold was most severe, but nothing could exceed the beauty of the
afterglow, and the strange look of the rolling plains of snow
beneath it.
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