On Bald Eagle Ridge

Lieutenants Luther S. Smith, John J. Williams and Cyrus Bettis of the Army sat comfortably in their Curtiss pursuit planes and watched the state of Pennsylvania slide by underneath. They were bound from Philadelphia to Selfridge Field (Mount Clemens,

Mich.). The understanding was that no stops would be made en route. At Selfridge Field they were to compare notes, then tune up their machines for the National Air Races next week in Philadelphia.

Fog fringed the mountain ridges. Lieutenants Smith and Williams, suddenly lost to each other, swung off on separate courses. Late in the afternoon they reached Selfridge Field, 40 minutes apart, and were surprised not to find Flyer Bettis there before them. An hour passed; the sun sank, and still no Bettis. It looked odd. Flyer Bettis, winner of last year's Pulitzer Race, was no man to loaf along. . . . Lieutenants Smith and Williams left Michigan in the dark, for Pennsylvania. . . .

Fog fringed the mountain ridges. Watch as he would, Flyer Bettis could not keep Flyers Smith and Williams in view. There they were. There they weren't. He started lifting his plane out of those mountains. It was just about the place that Charlie Ames, the air mail pilot, had pitched into a hogsback last year and lain dead for 10 days before they found him, . . . Lieutenant Bettis crashed.

After an hour and a half Flyer Bettis regained consciousness. Shots of pain told him that his left leg was smashed. He tried to lick his lips and another shower of agony told more: both jaws broken. Slowly he freed himself from his safety belt. Twenty-four hours crawled by.

Hunger was a huge irony, to a man with broken jaws. Rain set in and he cupped his hands, slaking off some of his delirium. Planes droned overhead, at intervals, but from their sound it was plain that the wrecked Curtiss racer was invisible from above. Flyer Bettis eyed the downslope of the mountain and started creeping on his three good members, with a limp thing dragging over the windfalls. At clearings he would pull himself erect and hop along from tree to bush, every jolt costing him a groan. At seven o'clock by his watch he heard automobiles, and two hours later he came to a field's edge. Occasionally a car went by, but smashed jaws cannot shout.

Exhaustion numbs pain. Flyer Bettis crawled over the field and fell asleep in the middle of a road, "although it was raining pretty hard." No car came. The road was under construction and most traffic was detoured. . . .

Fog still fringed the ridges. Millard Aurand and Harrison McAllip were afoot early, out to pick berries. Toward them, in great trouble on the road came a man, crawling with a broken leg. When they reached him he could just whisper.

At the Bellefonte hospital they took care of Lieutenant Bettis, and then a passenger plane, equipped with an invalid hammock, rushed him to Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D. C. Physicians marveled at his stamina, pronounced him convalescent despite 43 hours of pain and exposure.