Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1935-12-26
Copyright by Robert Ames Bennett

He cast off the tail mooring line and
swung aboard, with the coiled rope and
lis rifle. AS the plane drifted clear,
the breeze swerved it head off from
shore. Huxby paused moment to
jerk out question: "Route?"
For answer, Garth pointed westerly,
Huxby set the propeller whirling with
The self-starter. With rapidly increas.
ing Roadway, the plane skinned out
IN the smooth river.
Rifle between knees, Garth settled
down upon the cockpit seat at the
pilots elbow. Huxby was first to
speak. When the plane scared above
the west bank Of the great river, he
leaned close to shout repetition of
Ills question: "Route?"
Garth looked oversize before point
ing. The plane had climbed nearly a
thousand feet.
Even to man who had spent years
In the North, this view of the sub
arctic landscape was puzzling maze.
On the ground, Garth would have had
slight trouble retracing the course he
had followed in and out of the wilder
ness. From the air, everything looked
different. For all his flying expert
ence, Garth could not, as he had ex-
pected, strike Decline. Though he
knew the general direction of his find,
he was unable to guide the plane as
the crow flies.
At his sign to bank, Huxby frowned
but brought the plane around in wide
curve. Very soon, upriver from the re-
fuelfng station, Garth sighted the
small swamp stream on which he had
begun and ended his trip into the un-
known. This was familiar point Of
departure. From it he again directed
the pilot to the westward
Somewhat under an hour later, the
swamps and low ridges ended at the
upheave Of an eastward thrust noun
tain range. A near view of the bar.
rem peaks caused Garth to twist the
course about on sharp angle to the
southwest Those mountains had not
appeared any too familiar. The diff
Guilty of finding landmarks recognizable
from the air had not lessened For
days on his trip in and out, he had
Travelled through dense forests o.
spruce that shut off almost all wide
views, even of the mountains.
The westward rise of the country
had by now forced the plane up an
other thousand feet. Higher slopes
ahead called for still more altitude.
The jagged skyline reared thousand
feet or more higher than the plane.
Huxby started to climb. Until within a
mile of the savage cliffs he ignored
Garth's advice to lessen the angle.
Then, as the plane swept past an out
jutting peak on the right, Garth signed
towards the gap between it and the
main mass.
The highest point of the pass was
more than half thousand feet lower
than the plane. Huxby pushed the
stick forward and shot down for the
gap on long slant. The monoplane
soon drove in between the towering
precipices and steeply pitched side
slopes of the immense cleft. A little
more, and the cleft crooked to the
north. The plane banked around the
turn. Below the bend the cleft wild
ened in the neve of a glacier Farther
down the expanse of snow-ice pinched
into narrow gulch. The gulch ran
down into deep mountaln-rimmed
valley. Down the rough bed tumbled
a stream Of milky glacier water.
Garth noted moving dots on the
tundra and white specks up on the
rocky slopes above them. But Huxby
saw neither the caribou nor the noun
tain sheep. He had at once spotted
the lake in the valley bottom. He
angled on down as if to plunge into the
silvery sparkling ripples of the lake.
The monoplane swooped above the
upper shore and drove on towards the
foot of the lake at full speed. Garth
pointed to the intake from the glacier
stream, and signed for descent.
ITO BE CONTINUED)