EXPIATING A CRIME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21399, 25 January 1933, Page 9

EXPIATING A CRIME

INDIAN PRISONER AS HERO EPIC OF CANADA'S SNOW VANCOUVER, Jan. 16 A story of remarkable heroism by an Indian bad man is the latest epic of aeroplaning in Canada's frozen north. Bill Spence, the noted "smiling aviator" of Western Prairies, is dead, while the mechanic and three passengers with him when he made a forced landing owe their lives to the fortitude of an Indian prisoner, "Buster" Whiteway. In weather 30 degrees below zero, Mr. Spence started from a Moose River factory for Winnipeg, and when a snowstorm forced him down the aeroplane overturned, killing the pilot and badly injuring the others.

Mounted Police Corporal Graves, who was bringing Whiteway in for a term of imprisonment, was knocked unconscious, and had a collarbone and five ribs broken. The mechanic and a passenger, John Robinson, suffered broken legs and terrible bruises.

Whiteway soon regained consciousness, and found himself with a broken ankle, and so bitterly cold that he could hardly move, but piling blankets around his three companions the Indian left them comfortable and crawled Jor a mile over snowdrifts until he encountered a tepee of wandering Indians. Within an hour the Indians had rescued the half-frozen victims of the accident, who were brought into Winnipeg Hospital by another aeroplane. Needless to say, the Indian will be pardoned.