Free Lost on a Mountain in Maine by Donn Fendler

and he and the Ranger started back up the mountain within fifteen minutes—each carrying packs of supplies for those still searching on top. Before leaving, they instructed me to listen carefully, as long as I could keep awake, and also cautioned me how to handle the boyshould he be out of his mind and put up a struggle when I approached him. I maintained my vigil until drowsiness overtook me.
    â€œI awoke early next morning, and gazed upon a mountain spectacle I had never seen before, for all my activities had been on the other side of the summit and at night. Cliffs of ugly rock rose up straight 350 feet, and here and there large patches of snow clung. I shuddered again and thanked the Lord that the Ranger had known the way and led me along the edge of that chasm and safely down the only trail on this side.
    â€œMy right foot pained terribly as I hobbled for five miles through the wilderness, keeping my eyes glued to the telephone wires to make sure I kept to the right trail. Where the trail met the road, I was welcomed by a friend who drove me back to our camp, twenty miles around the mountain.
    â€œIt wasn’t until two days later, when a Millinocket doctor snapped them back into place, that I knew that the joints in the arch of my foot had come apart during that hazardous search on Mt. Katahdin.”
    Early the next morning, Mr. Fendler, who had spent most of the night searching frantically with the small group on top of the mountain, got in touch with every agency possible to get a large group of searchers under way. The Forest Service and all its branches throughout the Katahdin district were notified. The Great Northern Paper Company, which operates large timber crews throughout this section of Maine, sent about twenty “cruisers” from their Greenville station, and men were sent in from Island Falls, as well. These “cruisers” are expert woodsmen who know this section of Maine from long experience. Chief of Police Allen Picard, of neighboring Millinocket, and Mrs. Bernice Buck, of the Board of Selectmen of the same town, spread the news rapidly. Within a few hours, there were hundreds of people on the mountain. Men even left their jobs at the paper mill in Millinocket to join the hunt for the missing boy.
    The Maine State Police had two bloodhounds which were immediately rushed to the plateau and which picked up the scent of the lost boy. The bloodhounds led the searchers to Saddle Spring, where the trail was lost. It was the general consensus among the searchers that Donn had left the plateau and had fallen down somewhere between the big boulders which surround the plateau on all sides. The two bloodhounds were not accustomed to the rough terrain and their feet were soon torn and cut to such an extent that they had to be taken back.
    Many people thought that the bloodhounds would have found Donn if their feet had not been so cruelly torn by the jagged boulders over which they ran. A phone call was made to New York State asking for more dogs. Two were rushed by plane and arrived at Katahdin on Wednesday morning. As a precaution, leather shoes were strapped on their feet to save them from the torture suffered by the other dogs.
    Inasmuch as the National Guard could not be called out without the governor’s explicit command, communications were established with Governor Barrow’s office. He was in California, at this time, and it was not until about four o’clock Wednesday morning that he was finally reached. The order was rushed through, and sixty-five National Guardsmen joined the search.
    With such a large force on the mountain, provision had to be made for feeding the searchers. A National Guard field kitchen was sent up from Bangor, and the Great Northern Paper Company sent one of its field kitchens, called a “wangan,” to ChimneyPond, located at the base of Baxter Peak on the other side of the mountain.
    The hunt was divided into two groups—one in charge of