Rescues

P:Into Death Valley from Red Mountain, Calif. chugged the automobile of Prospector John Backert, bound with his family of three for the Backert claim at Leach Springs, 60 miles away. Suddenly, one of the desert's rare cloudbursts swept down upon them, made a river of the road, forced the car to turn up a hillside, where it broke an axle. Well aware of their danger, Prospector Backert and Daughter Ernestine, 22, left Mrs. Backert, 51, and Daughter Agnes, 12, in the car, started to hike the 40 miles back to town, got there 48 hours later. Organizing a rescue party, they sped back to their car, found only a penciled note. Mother and daughter, unable after two days and nights to endure the heat any longer, had wandered off into the trackless sands in search of water.

For 48 hours the lost pair stumbled over the barren Valley floor, their feet blistered, their lips cracked, their tongues swollen. Often crossing their own footprints, they realized they were circling hopelessly. At last, completely exhausted, they lay down beside a dry mudhole to await their fate. There last week a searching airplane pilot finally spied little Agnes feebly waving a blanket.

P:Into the open Atlantic from Bermuda sailed La Dahama, the yacht of Philadelphia Sportsman Albert R. G. Welsh, bound with a captain and crew of three for the Mediterranean. A 55-ft., two-masted auxiliary schooner, she had sailed to Bermuda from the U. S., seemed capable of going anywhere. But last week in midocean a 100-m.p.h. gale swept down upon her, snapped her foremast, pounded her with huge waves, filled her cockpit, flooded her engine, split enormous seams along her keel. Owner Welsh and his crew flew a distress signal, began frantic pumping and bailing.

On the morning of the fifth day they were almost exhausted when "something big loomed on the horizon. It looked like an island, but we knew there was no island there. Then it looked like a beautiful castle. It was high and shiny." It was the S. S. Rex, heading for New York.

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