ghly praised by our pilots, and I am ready
to add my testimony to the steadiness and reliability of the "ship"
which was under so much discussion and investigation over here.

On October 10, with Lieutenant Wilson, of the 163rd Aero Squadron, in
a two-seated Liberty I took a "jump" over the Meuse Valley. As we
bumped over the ground in our first sudden dash, and then birdlike
rose quickly into the air, my sensations were not the hair-raising
variety so often described by the thrilled amateur. When we "banked"
however, on a sharp turn, I had my first real sensation--I quickly
braced myself lest I fall overboard. At thirty-five hundred feet the
fields looked like green-and-brown patches, the forests like low
bushes, and the railroads, highways, and rivers like tracer lines
across the face of a map.

From that altitude the earth was beautiful. The enchantment of
distance had blotted out the rubbish heaps. The yellow waters of the
turbid streams glistened in the sun and the very mud itself, which the
day before had prevented my flight, was now but a smooth, golden
surface.

"A PUBLIC HANGING IN WAR TIME"

On July 12 it was rumored that a soldier had been sentenced to be hung
the next day at ten o'clock for an unspeakable crime. The gallows was
already built on the edge of the camp at Bazoilles. I saw it on my
afternoon trip and knew that the report was true. Being interested in
the psychology of such a scene on the men present, I put aside my
inward rebellion at so gruesome a sight and arranged my trip so as to
be present. I reached the camp at nine forty-five and was the last man
admitted. The gallows was built in the center of the semicircle facing
two hills which came abruptly together, leaving a large grass plot at
their base. This formed a natural amphitheater. About two thousand
soldiers, both white and colored, were seated on the grass inside a
rope inclosure. A company of soldiers from another camp had been
marched in to act as guards, and they formed a complete circle
standing just outside the ropes and extending down to the gallows on
either side.

Many French civilians and visiting soldiers lined the edges or looked
down from points of vantage on the hillside. I stood on one side about
one hundred feet from the "trap." At nine fifty a Red Cross ambulance
drove up, and the prisoner, his hands bound behind him, alighted, and
accompanied by a guard and the officials, walked up a dozen wooden
steps to the pl