Summer in the Sierra Nevada can be hot at midday especially in open space not covered by pine and fir forest. At night cold settles in. By 1909 the high Sierra town of Truckee was a town where all the trees had been cleared to provide lumber for railroad tracks, houses, and mines. In the novel on a hot summer day, the four Edwards youngsters gain a horse after examining the first car bought by the town’s saloon keeper. Summer luck! Witnesses to an argument, they are of

This image of the Truckee River was shot near Truckee, California. Different from other major California rivers that drop down from the west side of the mountains, it begins at the northwest side of beautiful Lake Tahoe high in the Sierra Nevada and gradually drops 120 miles to the east. Crossing the Martis Valley--the meadows in The House on Harrigan’s Hill, the river rushes past the town of Truckee. It follows the opening in the mountains on the far side of town, dropping