Imperial Valley press. (El Centro, Calif.) 1907-current, 1937-03-21

IT BEING cabin type, those inside couldn't
see their stowaway, but the ship was so tail
heavy that the pilot suspected something was
wrong and glance at the excited crowd be-
low, waving and gesturing franticaly, gave him
good idea. He swung around and landed as
gently as possible. The cowboy scrambled off,
unharmed-but stone sober.
Few Westerners foolhardy, but many
are just as nervy Flying from Lincoln to Hyan-
mis-, Nebraska, one night Harry Minor and
companion that the exhaust pipe running
alongside the cockpit had set the plane afre.
They dived into pasture, grabbed the extin-
gusher, and had it out in no time. Then with
few bits of wire and wood borrowed from a
nearby fence, they did the necessary repairing
and flew on home.
Some ranchers pilot their own planes others
hire chauffeurs. Plenty of young fellows will
leap at chance to be a cowpilot, sharing the
cowboys clubhouse and working with the other
\ hands when there's no flying to be done.
Dudes are as out of place in the air as on
broncos backs in this new vocation. At Al-
ance Nebraska, the boys boast that they use
a log chain for wind sock, and they say they're
willing to fly long the chain is standing
straight out-ony when it begins swapping the
links off the end of the chain do they advise
remaining on the ground.
More accurate testimony to sandhl wind
comes from Bill Mapning, cowpilot who made
to Hyannis, Nebraska, in ship with cruising
speed of only rs miles an hour. He noticed the
towns slipping along below pretty fast, but he
was so busy keeping his suitcase from bouncing
down onto his head from its place behind the
seat, while the plane bounced around like
kite, that he didn't have time to make many
calculations. Later he discovered that he had
travelled $50 miles in one hour and twenty min
utes, which means that his neutrality-suspicious.
plane going $50 miles an hour.
And on out in the mountain country, flying
becomes still more hazardous, but because of
the very roughness of the terrain which makes
it perilous, it may be yet more valuable aid
to the man whose wealth is scattered through
those hooks and crannies
Modern ranchers deal in terms of thousand,
whether it is acres, cattle, sheep antelope.
Much of the property often lays far away from
headquarters yet they must be constantly in
touch with it in all kinds of weather.
Take the Arnold property for instance. Head
quarters are in South Dakota, between Niobrara
and Snake River In addition to $4,000 acres
which he owns, Tom Arnold leases thousands
more from the Indians He also runs cattle on
nearby government forest reserve. About 46
head find pasture on each section of land in
this vast domain. Some of these animals Craze
in such remote places that an armed guard
must still be kept to prevent rustlers from
making away with them.
It's small responsibility keeping track of
so much territory, many cowhands, such big
herds. But if saddles, branding irons, spools of
barbed wire, any other items are needed
down in Nebraska, the boss send a cow
! hand flying with them from the home place in
South Dakota in time at all. Personally,
he can supervise the work in dozen different
places. That plane throughout the spring and
summer, enables him to to it that wells
are kept going. fences repaired and calves
looked after
I'VE always get a good calf crop" boasts
Toms son and pilot, Eddie Arnold. 1--WE never
get less than So percent crop which is about
5000 calves"
Maintaining such a record would be exceed
ingly difficult from saddle; it's not so strenu-
GUS from a cockpit.
In the fall, when the cattle are ready for
market the plane again pays dividends The
big Western ranchers sell nearly all of their
livestock to feeders small farmers who buy
the range-fed animals and fatten them up
milk and corn for the market. In the old days,
these cattle were shipped to a central market
and re-sold there to feeder. This involved con-
siderable shrinkage in the animals themselves,
and there was also middlemans fee to be
paid
Now Tom Arnold and his pilot hop into
the plane fly five or six hundred miles to Iowa,
and bring back three four prospective buyers
in single day. They show these farmer-guests