O, that torturing journey! As we neared Omaha the thermometer rose to
105 in the Pullman car, and remained there nearly all day. For twelve
hours we steamed, sitting rigidly erect in our chairs, dreading to move,
sweltering in silence, waiting with passionate intensity for the cool
wind which we knew was certain to meet us somewhere on our upward
course.

The sun went down in murky flame and the very shadows were hot, but deep
in the night I was roused by a delicious puff of mountain air, and
calling to Zulime, suffering in her berth, I said, "Worry no longer
about the heat. From this hour on, every moment will be joy. You can
forget the weather in Colorado."

What exquisite relief came with that change of air! What sweetness of
promise! What buoyancy of expectation!--We went to sleep with the wind
blowing in upon us, and when we woke the mountains were in sight.

At the station in the Springs, our good friend Louis Ehrich again met
us, and in half an hour we stood in the same room which we had occupied
on our wedding trip, a room whose windows faced directly upon the
Rampart range, already deep purple with the shadow of the clouds. By
contrast with our torrid railway car this was Paradise itself--so clean,
so cool, so sweet, so tonic was the air, and when at noon a storm hid
the peaks, and lightning crashed above the foot hills, the arid burning
plain over which we came was forgotten--or remembered only to make our
enjoyment of the mountain air more complete.

The splendor of that mighty wall, the kiss of that wind, the memory of
that majestic peak looming amid the stars, comes back to me as I write,
filling me with an almost intolerable longing to recover the magic of
that summer, a summer which has receded with the speed of an eagle.

Each day we breakfasted and lunched and dined on a vine-clad porch in
full view of the mountains. Each afternoon we drove or rode horseback or
loitered on the lawn. Never in all my life had I come so near to
flawless content, and Zulime, equally joyous, swiftly returned to
perfect health. Her restoration was magical.

Louis Ehrich, one of the gentlest men I have ever known, rejoiced in our
presence. He lived but to fill our days with pleasure. He and I had been
friends for ten years, and his family now took my wife into favor--I was
about to say into equal favor, but that would not be true. They very
properly put her above me in the scale of their affection, and to this
subordina