Their objective point was Ashport, where a gentleman by the name of Robert Ashley had offered a magnificent trophy to be contested for by all legitimate amateurs who wished to enter a cross-country running contest. It was not that Frank, or any of his team, intended to enter the contest that had influenced Merry to take in Ashport on his journey to the East, but he had heard much about the man who was promoting the event, and what he had heard had been favorable. Ashley was an Englishman, and shortly after graduating from Oxford he had found himself, at the death of his father, left with but a small portion of the fortune he had been led to believe he should inherit. Quickly realizing that the income of this reduced fortune would not support him in the style he desired, he put aside family and caste prejudice against “trade” and formed an unfortunate business alliance with a shrewd rascal, who quickly succeeded by crooked methods in robbing him of what he had left, and then threw him over to face the world. By the sale of personal effects, Ashley raised something like three hundred pounds, and with this in his pocket he bade farewell to England and turned his face toward America. There is no need to recount his career in this country, but let it suffice to say that, after many hardships and severe struggles, he “struck it rich” in Colorado. For him “the mining game” was a successful one, and within five years after fortune turned, he retired from the struggle, many times a millionaire. His success in the face of disappointment and hard luck he attributed to his persistence, endurance, and staying power; and many a time he averred that these qualities—to some extent hereditary—had been cultivated, developed, and brought to perfection by such school-day and college sports as cross-country running and hare and hounds. Ashley had conceived a great admiration and love for the country in which he had retrieved his fallen fortunes. After a visit to his former home in the old country, he returned to the United States and finally settled near Ashport, on the Ohio River. Whether or not he was attracted by the name of the town it is impossible to say; but there he found precisely the sort of country he admired and his fortune permitted him to purchase a large estate. He soon became actively concerned in many charitable works and he took a great interest in all sorts of healthy outdoor sports, participating in such as were adapted to his years and encouraging those in which he could not longer indulge. He founded the Ashport Amateur Athletic Association, which, although located in the country, was within easy range of many thriving towns and two large and prosperous cities; and, in the two years of its existence, it had made such rapid advancement in membership and achievement that it was regarded as one of the leading organizations of the sort in the country.