The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1911-10-05
FLEW
BY HAY RUBE in The Laurinburg Tx
change

have to have pilots license Q Pc
long TO any Aero Club of America in
order to take a flight. of imagination
now and than, / am going to tell you
how I flew IN an aeroplane from New
York to- Frisco in six daylight days,
greatly out-distancfng the other tel
lows who are still droning away slow
" over valley, plain and peak, and
thereby winning Hearst's yellow
fifty thousand. Perhaps you'll think
this is a true story, but it amt
Crank her up! Spike down the
switches! And stand from under! o.
H. R.)
First day: Left New York City
midst the greatest ovation mortal ever
was accorded. Woman shrieked, mel
huzzahed, children went frantic, dogs
howled, cats squalled pigs squealedl
dray horses neighed street car gongs
gonged, subways subsidized, canyons
cannoned rootsers crew, fireworks
sizzled, lambs in Wall street bleated,
ancient mummies in museums from
faraway Egypt rose up in their go
pher-wood collins and clapped their
skeleton hands, all Gotham to its cen
Ter Sioux, dill uIdl1 UQ11O1A60 SWoJO0
like canebrakes in a gulf breeze. |
rose Immediately to a height Of sew
eral thousand feet, stuck my S in
the wind and beat a bee=line-West-
ward no! SKINNED up the Hudson
between the palisades, SCARED over
the Mohawk valley, swopped v e Ma
cara Falls, winged up the Niagara
river and landed gracefully in West
Seneca, three miles out of Buffalo,
without running down a single Pole
Second day: Remembering the
great send-off / got the previous day
in New York, and knowing, too, that
the Western Union, Postal Southern
Bell and Telephone, Pacific Telegraph
and Telephone, Mareonl Wireless
United and Delforest Wireless com
panfes and the Atlantic and PACING
cables were all flashing the news OF
whereabouts to all parts of Amer
ca, Europe, Aisa, Africa and the great
er part of South Carolina, I deemed
it. advisable not to attempt a land
ing in Chicago for / must OF necessity
kill several million people in settling
to earth. So / decided to steer a
course halfway between ST. Louis
and Chicago. In flying over the Erie
Basin l saw thousands of men at work
cutting grapes in the vineyards, but
they did not seem to give me the at
tention I thought I deserved, consld-
ering who | was. A little before
shutdown, about Is miles out of Terre
Haute, / saw a farmer pulling a now
ing machine with an automobile, and
I lit HARDLY, as it Were. / procured
enough gasoline to run my thousand
b. D.. motor the next day and Their
rated there for the night
Third day: Record fight-over SOC
miles. Crossed the Father of Waters
early. Got a birdseye view of Mis-
souri,. Got caught in vortex of Kan
sas cyclone. Whirled around i a cir
Gle for gfteen minutes at the rate o.
over two hundred miles per hour
Gained so much momentum that Wher
/ broke loose from the twister / made
the next, hundred miles in 72 minutes
Saw vast expanse of waving grair
falling before International harvest
ers. Landed in Dodge City just be-
fore nightfaIl for fuel. Bird-hoppeC
out o fthere quickly and landed
twenty miles out on the barren plains
for the night. l was particularly an
xious te dodge Dodge City, as / have
heard and read so much when l wa
about it being such a tough place
when Buffalo Bill used to- live Their,
and others used to die there
Fourth day: Woke early. Cover
ed with feas. Had slept in prairie
dog village. Coyotes had chewed CT
my shoe-strings. Ran my hand il
my pocket for cigarettes. Pulled on
,~rattlesnake q feet long with 60 rat
ties and 16 overcoat buttons. Caugh
a prairie, chicken roestihg on uppe
plane. Preparing chicken ~frfcasse
fer breakfast when ground squire
ran up propeller blade, setting. en-
CINE in motion. Barely caught ma
chine as it bounded away and climb
ed into seat. Decided to keeplon fly
ing. Flew low over the sagebrusl
plains. Ran covey of sage hens tina
flushed up afore me. Propelle
blades made the feathers. fly. Late
on l stampeded a herd of Is hun
dred thousand three hundred an
eighteen steers. C~ow-punchers fire
on me. Get ugly hole in wing of lef
plane. Saw another heard of exactE
three million. and seventeen sheer
The herders crawled among the shee,
to hide, as it were. Flew high owe
snowcapped peaks of the Rockies
Tried to land in Rocky Park, nea
ancient cliff dwellings,. Too hazard
ous. Flew on to Durango.
Fifth day: Flew exceedingly higl
over snow-shing peaks that jutte,
through the silver lining of murky
looking clouds. Saw the Snake rive
winding like a silken thread anon
the brown volcanic hills far beneat
me. The words of the poet Organ
/ think came to me: "This swift
flowing river, this silver-gliding river
whose springing willows shiver in tn
sunset Of old; they shiver in tn
silence of the willow-clustered island
and the sand-bars and the sun-bar
fill air and wave with gold.' A fe7
minutes before sunset l saw an In
dian encampment on a sandy ledge
] descended. The red-skinne
Ghrovor, ond +hoir VIC bb1ipO cn11o N