"Yes; oh, yes, of course!" the other two chimed in.
"All I was thinking of," I added, "was the exercise."
"That's it," my companion cried. "Exercise. We haven't had a bit of exercise since we left New York."
"I need it, too!" put in the Denver man. "My wife says I'm getting fat."
"Oh, if it's exercise you want," said our host, "I'm with you."
Even the spirits of the chauffeur seemed to rise as his employer alighted.
"I think I had better stay with the car, sir," he said.
"All right, all right," said our host indifferently. "You can be turning her around. We'll be back in a couple of hours or so."
"Well," he said, "I don't know but what the exercise will do me good, too. I guess I'll come along if you don't mind, sir."
On foot we could pick our way, avoiding the larger drifts, so that, for the most part, we merely trudged through snow a foot deep. But it was uphill work in the sun, and before long overcoats were removed and cachéd at the roadside, weighted down against the wind with stones. Now and then we left the road and took a short cut up the mountainside, wading through drifts which were sometimes armpit deep and joining the road again where it doubled back at a higher elevation. Presently our coats came off, then our waistcoats, until at last all five of us were in our shirts, making a strange picture in such a wintry landscape.
Now that the dread of skidding was removed I began to enjoy myself, taking keen delight in the marvelous blue plains spread out everywhere to the eastward, and inhaling great drafts of effervescent air.
When we had struggled upward for perhaps two hours we left the road and assailed a little peak, from the top of which our host believed the main range of the Rockies would be visible. The slope was rather steep, but the ground beneath the snow was fairly smooth, giving us moderately good footing. By making transverse paths we zigzagged without much difficulty to the top, which was sharp, like the backbone of some gigantic animal.
I must admit that I had not been so anxious to see the main range as my Denver friends had been to have me see it. It did not seem to me that any mountain spectacle could be much finer than that presented by the glittering wall as seen from Denver. I had expected to be disappointed at the sight of the main range, and I am glad that I expected that, because it made all the greater the thrill which I felt when, on topping the hill, I saw what was beyond.