IN THE weird, half light of a summer night in
the far Northland, a red, low-winged mono-
plane skimmed gracefully along the surface of
a shallow river that pierced the bleak Alaskan
tundra. The ship gained speed, climbed a scanty
fifty feet, and then plunged awkwardly, out of
control, to the water below. It was as if some
invisible hunter with a powerful, silent weapon had
sent a lethal charge into the gaily-colored, man-
made bird. No one moved in the broken airplane.
Its occupants had made their final landing.

Thus did Will Rogers, beloved prince of wit and
wisdom, and Wiley Post, master aviator, meet their
end in the barren wilderness a few miles from the
last outpost of civilization in North America.

Only a terrified Eskimo seal hunter saw the ship
as it crashed into the edge of the little unnamed
stream, and in his fright he ran away from the
tangled wreckage of the once-roaring machine of
his white-faced brothers. As the echo of the crash
rolled away over the hummocky tundra, the native,
Clair Oakpeha, made his way back to the river
bank and shouted loudly to the men in the plane.
There was no answer. Only the Arctic stillness.

Realizing that the occupants of the plane were
beyond his aid, Oakpeha set out to bring the news

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