Trail and Camp-Fire 



stead in the center every time." But whether 

 he followed his back track or not, he said, it 

 would be easy for him to get there when he 

 struck Texas; everybody down there knew 

 the place. As a matter of fact, it was on his 

 father's ranch that old Noah had built the 

 Ark; it was famous on that account, and 

 about everybody in the State had been there 

 at one time or another to look at the place, 

 and secure a few chips as souvenirs. He re- 

 called the days of his youth, when evil times 

 came not, and he could travel eighty or ninety 

 miles a day easily, always on the run, up hill 

 and down; how, when he was fourteen years 

 old, he had left his father's house to go to 

 work on a cattle ranch, and when, after six 

 months, word came to him that his father's 

 fortune had been lost in an unlucky specula- 

 tion, he had returned, and emptied out of his 

 pockets $80,000 in gold, which had tided his 

 father over, and saved the family from degra- 

 dation. He also told me that his name was 

 not Cherry, but Ryan, and that he had two 

 brothers, one of whom had become known to 

 fame as Doc Middleton, the notorious road 

 agent and confidence man, while the other 

 had acquired a scarcely less enviable reputa- 



56 



