Dan Davis’s recovery of Flexible Frank and Pete is a two-part nighttime operation: he secretly retrieves the machine and its plans from Miles Gentry’s locked garage, then takes Pete from the house and heads toward the Girl Scout camp near Big Bear. The episode joins practical engineering knowledge to a risky rescue, while a hooked screen door briefly disrupts the escape plan.

Background and Approach

The evening of 3 December 1970, Davis returned to Miles’s house in Los Angeles. Because he did not know exactly when he had arrived there on his earlier visit, he came comfortably early and watched the curb from a distance. After another car arrived and its lights went out, he recognized it as his own and approached.

Davis had no key to the car, but a spare was hidden in its trunk—a precaution born of his habit of becoming absorbed in engineering problems and forgetting his keys. He let the car roll downhill without lights or engine, turned at the corner, and then parked in the alley behind Miles’s house, where the garage faced. His stealth depended on small practical choices rather than a direct confrontation.

Recovering Flexible Frank

The garage was locked. Through its dirty glass, Davis saw a sheet-covered shape and recognized the contours of Flexible Frank, his old machine. He forced the door with a tire iron, then checked for the notes and drawings he suspected were there. Finding them, he carried them to the car before dismantling the machine.

Davis knew the machine’s construction better than anyone, which made the work faster, and he did not need to preserve its condition. Even so, breaking it down into pieces he could carry took nearly an hour. He loaded the last piece, the wheelchair chassis, into the trunk and lowered the car’s rear cover as far as it would go. The machine had been recovered, but only as cargo and plans rather than as an intact working device.

Pete’s Escape

As Davis finished loading, Pete began to wail. Davis hurried around the garage into the backyard, where he heard running, crashes, Pete’s cry, and Belle’s screams. He had hoped to witness Pete’s triumph, but the open back door and light through the screen did not give him a view of what was happening inside.

The screen door was hooked, a failure in the sequence Davis had expected. He opened his knife, freed the catch, and moved aside as Pete struck through the screen and out into the yard. Davis fell over a rosebush; he could not tell whether Miles and Belle tried to follow Pete, and did not stop to find out. The interruption makes the escape depend not only on Davis’s preparations but on a stubborn household fixture that briefly blocks the route.

Departure and Consequences

Davis told Pete that the show was over and called him to come home. Pete sat down to wash himself, then jumped into Davis’s outstretched arms. Davis carried him to the car, where the only available place was the driver’s space; after Pete objected to the changed arrangement, Davis put him in his lap.

With the car’s lights on, Davis turned east toward the Girl Scout camp near Big Bear. He discarded enough pieces of Flexible Frank during the first ten minutes of driving to make room for Pete to resume his accustomed place. Once the floor was clear, he stopped and pushed the notes and drawings down a storm drain. He kept the wheelchair chassis longer, disposing of it in a deep arroyo after they had reached the mountains. The escape therefore also erased the plans and discarded the machine’s largest remaining component.

Around three in the morning, Davis reached a motor court across from the camp turnoff and paid for a cabin. Pete nearly drew attention to them by raising his head and commenting when the owner came out. Davis’s question about the time the morning mail from Los Angeles arrived indicates that the camp was their next destination; the recovery ends with the pair sheltered nearby, not yet at the camp itself.