About the Author:

Richard Ferguson was born in Houston, Texas. He spent time on his grandfather's ranch in New Mexico most summers until he was nineteen when he joined the Army. He still has the first short story he wrote when he was five. In it, a boy finds an injured prairie dog and nurses it back to health. Richard must have already had a flair for the surprise ending, or a short attention span, because at the end the boy throws the prairie dog back into the ocean and it swims away to live happily ever after. An interesting bit of extreme trivia is that Walter Cronkite and Richard did the same things. Richard was an editor for the Purple Pup at Lanier Junior High School in Houston and so was Cronkite. Richard wrote for the Lamar High School paper and so did Cronkite. Richard wrote for the University of Texas newspaper and so did Cronkite. In the Army, Richard wrote for the Stars and Stripes. He now lives in Mexico with Hamish and Poochie, his two canine friends who he saved one way or another.