THE RETURN JOURNEY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 133, 2 December 1929, Page 11

THE RETURN JOURNEY

(Received 2nd December, 8 a.m.)

It had been lonely wandering round over that endless plateau. In the meantime the weather turned hazy and that did not augur well. The mountains were entirely out of sight. On and on they flew until a shadowy line was visible and slowly the mountains began to lift out of the distance, their heads circling the rim of that white world over which they were flying.

At the Pole, June estimated that they had 250 gallons of gas left, and that ought to be enough, if everything went well, and they could see the snow slipping by under the skiis much more rapidly than before. They think they made ten miles an hour better time coming back over the plateau than going out but they were glad to see the mountains again, even though at first it was difficult to recognise them. "They were just like company arriving," laughed June. '' Wo got, over being lonesome right away."

As they approached the mountains, they could see the clouds forming and the wind picked up more drift now and whirled it thicker below them. It sif tod off the sides of the mountains and drifted over the glacier. When they reached Axel Heilberg they had risen to 13,000 feet, and entered the great canyon at that height; Then they began to slide down it. Even so the mountains towered above them, and some of them to the east seemed 20,000 feet high. The flyers were thrown up and down by violent currents as they slid down the mountain pass over the glacier, sometimes the 'plane being tossed to one side as if it were a chip. "I skated around as if I was on skates," laughed Mac, '' and finally I sat on the blow torch. I had to move around, but I shot out of every window in that 'plane, and some of thes pictures are just going to be blurs of walls shooting past.''

Byrd again went forward on the down trip, standing beside Balehen. The glacier gorge was full of peaks sticking up through the ice, and little clouds were forming .about them and on the sides of the mountains, which lined the way. Ascending currents flowed from the bar rock heated by the sun, and cold down drafts dropped them as they passed over precipices of ice and snow. There was one great hole, the sides of it nearly COOO feet high, ' where the 'plane went down like a rock 400 or 500 feet. Evcrj'one inside was skidding andhariging on, and Mac was struggling again with his camera. DOWN TO THE DEPOT. The 'plane slid on fast with the motors throttled down, and presently came out over the barrier to the cast of the depot placed on the former flight. Byrd turned east for a time to see something of the country over that way, but the vanishing gas caused him to "turn back after a short time and then headed for the depot It was hard to find at first. The mountains looked so different at this new angle, but they changed to a more familiar aspect as the 'piano neared the base, and "they looked like old friends," said Mac. "When we got down there," said June, "I thought, well, wo can walk home from here,' " "Yes," laughed Mac, "and I thought the same thing, only I thought I could run that 400 miles."-

June climbed into the cockpit and took the controls, as he had been there on the former flight, and after smoke bombs had been dropped by' the Commander, to get the wind direction, June picked a fairly smooth landing place Fortunately tho wind was such that he could land parallel to the snow ridges, and by the time the 'plane hit the blimps the speed had decreased by half We taxied around to get the 'plane in a position so that good pictures could be taken of it there on snow, with the base and mountains in the background and he ground out tho last of his movie ji.m. He noticed that since the former landing much more ice had formed by the melting of the foot of tho Livs Glacier. It was like looking at a big pool or. water shining in the sun. At the base the Commander took more sights, then buried moro food for the geological party. While he was doing this Balchen and Mac were opening the gasoline tins left there and passing them up to June on the toi of tho wing whero ho stood in the cold wind of the idling motors.

HOME AGAIN IN TIME. When they had refuelled, which took about an hour, they took off again, and made it easily with a light load and a wind to help them. The load was on the wings before they hit the bumps which eased the shock on the landing gears and skiis. From there on the flight was comparatively easy, although Byrd had to navigate all the way. They went somewhat to the east, and when they came back they did not see the dog trail at all. They first hit at the Crevasses about IGO miles out, making a perfect landfall there. Following a compass course, for the trail was com-

plctcly invisible at this time, they came straight on to camp. The Commander flew part of the way, and Mac also took the controls. On tho latter part of the flight they did not see a landmark until a few miles from the cump. They then sighted the radio towers dead ahead. In a few hours there was a high wind, blowing so much drift snow that the house windows were buried this morn-

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