HE night train, westbound to the Coast, deposited a single passenger upon the Truckee Station platform and slipped clicking down the railroad yards, its brilliant tail-lights gleaming above the snow. "Winter air in the Sierra Nevadas is brisk and biting, and the lone gentleman thrust his fat hands into his overcoat pockets and looked about him with a mixture of curiosity and condescension. Plainly here was one unused to the provinces, and, by the curl of his lip, not particularly impressed with his surroundings.
On one side of the track was the short main street of Truckee, with its thirty-seven saloons. On the other side was the swiftly flowing river, mirroring the lights of the Ice Palace beyond. The stranger shivered and drew his overcoat closely about him. In cold weather the overcoat proclaims the man, and this garment spoke loudly of Broadway check rooms and brighter lights than Truckee's. Its shell was of the finest melton, lined with undyed sealskin, while the rolling collar and the wide cuffs were of astrakhan. Of the man inside the coat it is sufficient to say that he wore too many diamonds, had a bulge where his jawline should have been and dimples in place of knuckles. Everything about him suggested fatness and softness, and he wheezed when he lifted up his voice querulously:
"Here, you! Can I get a carriage in this God-forsaken hole?"
The station loafer whom he addressed chuckled from his perch upon a baggage truck:
"A carriage, mister? What for?"
"To take me to the hotel, of course. What did you think I wanted it for?"
The loafer jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
"Hotel's right across the street," said he. "Folks mostly walk it."
The man in the fur coat grunted, picked up his suitcase and then put it down again.
"Carry this for me!" he commanded.
"Sure!" said the loafer, scenting a quarter. "Why, of course!"
As they were crossing the slushy street, the newcomer planting his patent leathers gingerly, a startling succession of noises rose on the quiet air. First came a long-drawn howl, and before the sound had died away among the pines and tamaracks a dozen tongues answered it. The stranger paused, irresolute. The clamor swelled and grew in volume until the whole night seemed to quiver with it. The man in the sealskin coat recognized the sound. He had once staged a Broadway musical comedy called "The Queen of Saskatchewan," and the phonographed howlings of a wolf pack had been the hit of the piece.
"Wolves!" said he, and looked back at the depot as if meditating flight.
"Naw!" said the loafer, grinning. "Not wolves, but the next thing to it. There's a movie outfit up here makin' Alaska stuff, and every stable in town is full of them darned malemutes and huskies. They fight all day and howl all night, but outside o' that I guess they're all right."
"Oh, the dog teams, eh?" said the stranger, evidently relieved. "They belong to the Titan Company, don't they?"
"Yeh, that's the name of the outfit. There's been five or six companies here this winter makin' snow pictures, but this is the biggest of the bunch. They got skin canoes, seven or eight sledges, fifty dogs, fur clothes till you can't rest, an' even a lot of Japs that they dress up like Eskimoses."
"And what do you think?" said the loafer five minutes afterward to the keeper of the bar in one of the thirty-seven saloons. "Here I'm givin' all this information to the general manager of the company—the Main Finger, just out from New York. Golly! He sure did jump when them malemutes started singin'!"
While the loafer was spending his newly acquired quarter in a manner that seemed good to him, Mr. I. Gordan—for so he wrote himself upon the hotel register—was asking the clerk the usual question of his kind.
"What's doing in town to-night?"
"Well," said the clerk, "there's the saloons and the Ice Palace. That's about all."
"The Ice Palace?"
"That's the building across the river from the depot—they flood the floor with water and let it freeze. Best ice skating in the West. You'd better see that, it's worth while."
"New York is full of ice rinks," said Mr. Gordan.