Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace, The soul that knows it not, knows no release From little things: Knows not the livid loneliness of fear, Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear The sound of wings. How can Life grant us boon of living, compensate For dull grey ugliness and pregnant hate Unless we dare The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay With courage to behold resistless day, And count it fair. CONTENTS PAGE Foreword 9 Introduction 11 CHAPTER I.—Toronto Days 29 II.—Early Aviation 43 III.—My Own Plane 59 IV.—I Shift My Base to Boston 82 V.—Preparations 95 VI.—Off for Newfoundland 117 VII.—At Trepassey 147 VIII.—Across 170 IX.—Journey’s End 198 X.—Aviation Invites 212 XI.—Women in Aviation 237 XII.—Problems and Progress 252 XIII.—Retrospect 279 Wilmer Stultz—Pilot 311 Louis Edward Gordon—Flight Mechanic 313 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE On the “President Roosevelt” _Frontispiece_ London News Agency Photo. Amelia Earhart 35 Underwood and Underwood. Wilmer Stultz 36 International Newsreel. Slim Gordon 41 Paramount News Photo. Mrs. Guest Returning to New York is Met by Commander Byrd from Whom She Purchased the “Friendship” 42 International Newsreel. My First Training Ship, 1920 51 A. E., 1928 52 Southampton—Mrs. Guest, Gordon, A. E., Stultz, Mrs. Foster Welch 57 Keystone Views. After My First Solo, 1921 58 My Cabbage Patch Landing, California, 1921 63 “I was Fond of Automobiles, Horseback Riding, and Almost Anything Else that is Active and Carried on in the Open” 64