are blooming and birds singing their spring songs in Southern
California, the Snow Queen reigns at Truckee in the mountains, six
thousand feet above the sea. Here people from San Francisco and other
large cities gather to indulge in winter sports, such as skiing,
tobogganing and sleighing, and many professionals go there to display
their art in skiing and skating; the Switzerland of the West, I would
call it. It was all too fascinating and too beautiful: six feet of
snow everywhere, and everything sparkling white in the sunshine.

[Illustration: AMID THE SNOW AT TRUCKEE, CALIFORNIA illustration shows
a dogsled team]

Once I started out to see Donner Lake, which reposes between Summit,
the highest point on this trip across the Great Divide, and Truckee.
We were in a sleigh drawn by a team of huskies: real Alaskan dogs. I
have ridden pretty much everything from a broomstick to a bronco, but
this was my first experience with huskies. I thought it was going to
be hard work for the dogs, but they frolicked about in the snow with
their pink tongues out, showing all their teeth as though they were
laughing in fiendish glee and enjoying every moment of it.

Truckee is only about thirty-three miles from Reno by automobile, and
the distance by train is thirty-six miles, so there should be no
excuse for not visiting this American Switzerland.

Another point of information which I discovered and think will
interest you quite as much as it did me, was that most all the great
moving picture companies go to Truckee to take their Alaskan scenes.
And now whenever you see a beautiful arctic picture on the screen, you
will realize that you are not looking at the frigid regions of Alaska,