1926-1929: 

After completing the school year in early June 1927, Ron travels to San Francisco, boarding a steamer to meet his father in Guam. By way of Hawaii, Japan, China, the Philippines and Hong Kong, Ron arrives at the island of Guam during the first week of July 1927. There, he befriends the local Chamorros and teaches in the native schools. Throughout these travels, Ron’s observations and adventures are carefully recorded in diaries. A few years later, Ron will draw upon these experiences for his adventure and action fiction.

By late September 1927, Ron returns to Helena where he joins the Montana National Guard’s 163rd Infantry. While at Helena High School he becomes an editor of the school’s newspaper.

For the annual Vigilante Day Parade on 4 May, Ron organizes and enters a group of classmates dressed as pirates of the Spanish Main and wins the prize for “Most Original” cast.

Finding classrooms and schools too confining, Ron ventures out alone again and travels aboard the USS Henderson, returning to the Orient.

Through the next fourteen months Ron journeys inland to the Western Hills of China, out again to Japan, then down to the Philippines and further south to Java. He plies the waters of the China coast as a helmsman and supercargo aboard the Marianna Maru, a twin-masted coastal schooner.

In China, he becomes close friends with British intelligence officers, Buddhist priests, US Marines and the last remaining magician from the line of Kublai Khan’s court.

By late September 1929, he returns to the United States, completing his high-school education in Washington, DC. Writing and delivering a speech on the United States Constitution and the guarantees of individual liberty, he wins a scholastic oratory contest.