The daily times., 1922-02-04

every one share IN this worthy cause.
MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE
BROUGHT BY PIGEON.
New York, Feb. 3.-From over
the sea, starving and weak from
what may have been 1900 mile
flight, brown homing pigeon came
to a Brooklyn home yesterday, bear
ing, fastened to its foot, message as
mysterious as one from the dead,
perhaps a message from those long
thought dead. The message few
words scrawled in lead pencil on
weather-beaten piece of manila pa
per bag-is a cry for help, it is
thought, of men stranded on some
uncharted island in the Atlantic,
thousand miles off the west coast Of
Africa
The pigeon, a stranger, came to
the home of man whose son,
pigeon fancier, disappeared at sea
three months ago. If it is a message
from that son, and the entire family
believe that it is, it makes strange
coincidence. If it is not, it may be
a call for aid from sailors marooned
on some island, so small that it does
not appear on the charts.
On Nov. IL August Hill, Jr., 25,
748 Bush wick Avenue, Brooklyn,
with two companions, Piersall Crei-
ghton, 27, ITS Sheridan Avenue,
Brooklyn, and Walter Drews, rs,
Springfield, L. l., set sail from the
Hill Summter home at Bayside Place,
Rockaway Beach, in a small boat on
a hunting expedition. The next day
the boat, with their guns fastened in
side, was found floating bottom up
off Edgemere. Searchers patrolled the
bay in a score of small craft and
swept over it by airplane, but no
trace was found of the missing men.
But August Hill, Sr., never believ-
ed that they were dead. "My son and
the other boys were all wonderful
swimmers, he said. ''How could they
have been drowned, and the boat re-
main afloat? Somewhere my son is
alive. When God wills it I shall
hear from him.
Hill went to the roof of his store
at 1866 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn,
yesterday morning, and let loose for
their two-hour exercise flight his
200 pigeons. When the birds came
back, two stranger brown pigeons,
more than half as big again as the
largest of Hills own flock, came
with them. They were quite wild. Hill
managed to catch one in his pigeon
net, but the other flew away, and
has not been seen since.
AS Hill lifted the captive bird out
from the net he saw a piece of brown
paper tied to its left leg. He broke
tn string which held it and saw
message scribbled in lead pencil.
Then he shouted:
1T is from my son. I knew word
would come. knew it,
On the piece Of smudged and torn
paper bag were the words: Stranded
on island 33 degree by AZ degree.
Help"
Hill fed the pigeon with corn which
1t ate ravenously, Hill said he did not
believe that it had eaten in two
weeks. Ordinarily a bird Of its size
would have weighed a pound and a
half, but this one went only three
quarters of pound
The message was SO roughly
scrawl that Hill could not be sure
that 1t was the handwriting of his
son. But he did not lose faith.
Il know it is word from nv SON
at last" he cried. ..He is alive. 7
know it,
Hill hurried home and told hin
wife and children. They examined
the handwriting carefully. The sec
ond son, Frederick, 21 years old.
said ne was almost sure that the let.
ter HI in the word Help" of the
message had been written by his lost
brother. The Bureau of Missing Per-
soma and the ne ryo II 4