Cherry 



greatest failing was the careless manner in 

 which he handled the truth, often with ludi- 

 crous results, not the least humorous feature 

 of which was his own entire oblivion of them. 

 As a youngster, I imagine Cherry's educa- 

 tion had been sadly neglected, and one of his 

 queer conceits was to hide his evident defici- 

 encies in this respect. It was decidedly a case 

 where silence was golden, but he much pre- 

 ferred fighting in the open to ambuscading in 

 that fashion, and was never known to confess 

 his ignorance of any subject under the sun. 

 For instance, one year when we arrived for 

 our annual hunt, we were met at the railroad 

 station by Cherry and the other guides with 

 a pack outfit, and journeyed from there to a 

 small frontier town where our supplies were 

 awaiting us. On reaching our destination, we 

 went directly to the post-office, to inquire for 

 any mail that might have arrived, and Cherry 

 accompanied us. The postmaster gave us our 

 mail, and with it a letter which he had had for 

 some time, the address on which was not clear, 

 and asked us if we could make it out. We 

 were unable to do so, and were about to hand 

 it back, when Cherry said perhaps he could tell 

 something about it. As he could neither read 



S3 



