Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1918-08-31

] his one sound hand Sergent disengag- ed his dead comrade. Then he dived down vertically, resuming normal position within about 300 feet from the ground.
 An amazing instance of the unex- pected happening at the front ended in French and German pilot land ing together and laughing over their unusual adventure. This was the way of it: The Frenchman and the Ger man were circling and dipping for
 battle position. Suddenly the French
 pilot, thinking he had the advantage,
 charged his enemy from the, rear. But
 the German did not swerve sufficient
 ly and the left wing of the French
 machine struck the righd hand struts
 of the German. The collision caused
 the French airplane to spin around
 violently until it's tail whizzed be-
 tween the wings of the German-and
 stuck.
 Apparently being too busy-or per
 haps too astonished-to shoot at each
 other the opponents spiraled side by
 side in close embrace, ultimately
 crashing into the boughs of some
 trees. Neither pilot was hurt, so they
 clambered out, looked at each other
 and laughed heartily! Then, as they
 were behind the French lines, the
 German was reminded that he was a
 prisoner.
 Some of the exploits of the late
 Captain Ball, V. C., were of an as-
 founding nature. He. was onl y 19
 when he was killed, and for long held the record among British aviators, having downed forty-three boche ma chimes.
 Upon one occasion he had gone some twenty miles across the enemy lines when he encountered two of their ma chimes. Without hesitation he attack ed them and fought them until his ammunition had run out. The two ene- my planes had apparently had enough and seized this opportunity to escape by diving td the ground.
 Ball was much disgusted at this and emptied six rounds from his revol- yer at the two diving machinesj He then seized piece of paper and pen- cil which he had with him and wrote out a challenge for the same two ma chinesf to meet him at the same spot the next day.
 At the appointed time Ball turned up at the rendezvous and few min utes later the same two enemy ma chimes approached him from the east. He flew toward lhem to engage in fight, but at that moment thles more of the enemy came down fror, the sky and attacked him from behind , It was carefully laid trap and he had fallen into it unsuspectingly. 1
 The three enemy machines that had , attacked him were of the latest fight ] ing type and werei all flown by ex- pert men. ,
 At every turn, Ball, who was un- derneath and thus at slight disad- vantage, found himself out-maneuver- $ ed. Turn and twist as he would, he al- C ways found one of the enemy on top C of him and another just ready to catch r him if he turned the other way. Sev- ( cral times bullets passed within inch V es of him. Finally, deciding to escape q he realized that he must do something + extraordinary, so he dived toward the i ground and picking out large field c glided' into it and landed.
 The three enemy pilots at once inn S agined that he had been shot and h forced to land, and they all glided t down and landed, either in the same f field with his or in the adjoining one. ii Then, jumping out of their machines, o they ran over to Captain Ball. How " ever, Ball, who had foreseen exactly t what would happen, had kept his en- zine running slowly while he was on the ground, and the moment he saw the Germans get out of their machines W he flew off again and so escaped. It