Flying close to three thousand feet above Oyster Bay, level and stable, the airplane seemed to be in perfect condition.

Jeff, for all his superstition, would have given it as a pilot’s opinion that only some mistake on Larry’s part, or a quitting engine, leaving them with a dead stick, could cause danger.

Just the same the unexpected happened!

“There’s where President Roosevelt lies,” Dick, in the last seat, because their places were rearranged by Larry’s position as pilot, indicated to Sandy, just ahead of him, the cemetery beneath them.

Very tiny, in its iron fenced enclosure, the last resting place of a national idol, was almost invisible with its simple headstone; but Dick’s statement was understood by Sandy to mean the location more than the exact spot.

“I’ll get Jeff to ask Larry to spiral down for a better look,” Sandy decided.

He transmitted the suggestion.
122

“Sandy wants to see President Roosevelt’s place in the cemetery,” Jeff spoke into the tube of the Gossport helmet Larry still used.

“There it is, just off our left wing, buddy. That’s right—stick goes to the left and a touch of left rudder, but when you moved the stick sidewise to adjust the ailerons you neglected that-there bit of forward movement to tip us down into a glide. Remember, it’s the double use of the stick that works ailerons and elevators both.”

Larry had overlooked that point for the instant. It was his only difficulty in flying, to recollect always to control all the different movements together. The joystick, operating the wing-flap ailerons by the left-or-right, lateral movement, also raised or depressed the elevators by forward-or-backward movement. However, in any lateral position, the forward and backward set of the stick worked the elevators and in executing a control maneuver, even as simple as going into a bank combined with a turning glide, or downward spiral, the movement of the stick should be both slightly sidewise, for sufficient bank, and, with the same movement, slightly forward, for depressing the nose into a glide, returning the stick from slightly forward back to neutral to avoid over-depressing the nose into too steep a glide; if not put back in neutral when the right angle was attained, the depressed elevators would continue to turn the forward part of the craft more steeply downward.
123

“Not too steep, Larry. Back with the stick.”

Just at the instant that Larry was about to obey Jeff’s instruction a gust of air, coming up warm, tilted the lifted wing more, and as he corrected for that, trying to get the wing up and the nose higher for a flatter spiral, his movement was a little too sharp, and the sensitive controls, working perfectly, but too sharply handled, sent the craft into an opposite bank, rolling it like a ship in the trough of a sidewise wave.

Also, Larry meant to try to draw the stick backward at the same time, coordinating both corrections; but Jeff, a little less calm than usual because of the superstitious fears that kept riding him, neglected to speak the words by which he would inform Larry that he was “taking over” until the correction was made.

By that neglect, both drew back on the stick at the identical instant, and the nose came up much too sharply.
124

Larry, not aware that Jeff meant to handle the job, almost pulled the stick away from Jeff in his anxiety to get the nose down again, and Dick, in the last seat, thought he felt a sort of thud.

“Hands off! I’ll take over!” Jeff said tardily.

He drew back on the stick for, with the throttle rather wide—because Larry had feared a stall as the nose went up and had thrust the throttle control sharply forward—the craft began to go down in a very steep glide, not quite a dive, but with engine on full gun, sending it in a sharp angle toward earth.

Naturally, when he pulled back on the stick and it did not yield, Jeff shouted through the speaking tube, “Let go!” for he thought Larry had lost his head and was fighting his control.

Larry was not doing anything. He had removed his hand from the stick, his feet merely touched the rudder bar.

Jeff called out something.

They did not realize his words, but Sandy saw his expression.

Almost as though he had been able to hear, Sandy knew Jeff’s idea.

“The jinx has got us.”

Jeff cut the gun swiftly, and came out of the bank pointed toward the wide, shimmering waters of Oyster Bay.

“What’s the matter?” Larry swung his head to call back.
125

“Stick’s jammed!” Jeff grunted through the tube.

“Jammed?”

“Stuck. It won’t come back. It’s the jinx! Hoodoo! We’re heading down for the bay and I can’t get the nose up!”

Dick, from the back place, saw Jeff struggling with the stick.

If he did not hear, at least his flying study informed him that something had gone amiss.

Equally, his quick mind arrived at a good guess at the trouble.

The only reason Jeff would swing toward the water and give up working with the stick must be that the stick would not operate the elevators.

And that, to Dick, spelled disaster.

Its speed accelerated at the start by the engine the airplane picked up speed rapidly because its nose was steadily going down.

Jeff tugged madly again.

The stick, part of an installed auxiliary control for instruction work, snapped out of its bed.

Jeff flung it disgusted............