“Glad to hear you think the hoodoo is busted,” Jeff commented. “Me, I don’t care. I’ve taken my last hop in that-there crate. I’m shaking like a leaf, even now.”

“Why don’t you go to your room and have a lie down?” suggested Dick.

Jeff decided that Dick had the right idea.

Dick watched him go along the gravel path, watched him climb to the side veranda of the big house, pausing for a moment to tell the newly installed housemaid about his recent adventure.

“I think I’ll go get some lunch,” observed Larry.

“Wait!” urged Dick, but said no more.

Mr. Everdail’s cousin, Miss Serena, evidently hearing the voices, came out on the veranda and listened.
132

“She’s coming out to ‘make over us,’ as she calls it.” Sandy saw the elderly, stern-faced, but kindly lady descend the steps and come rapidly toward them.

“My! My!” she called, coming closer. “What is this I hear from Jeff?”

“We had a little trouble,” Dick said. “Somehow the cable for the ‘flippers’ got jammed, but Larry got us out of the trouble like a born flyer.”

“Yes,” laughed Larry. “After Dick guessed what to do so I could work the stick.”

“Oh, I only crawled back to loosen the cable.” Dick tried to make his exploit seem unimportant. “First time I ever flew around standing on my head,” he broke into his infectious gurgle of laughter. “Sandy, did I look like a frog stuck in the mud?”

“Whatever you looked like,” Sandy retorted, “you did a mighty big thing, crawling out onto that open covering in the wind, risking being snatched off or slipping, or having the airplane shake loose your grip!”

“I agree with Sandy,” Miss Serena declared. “It was a very fine thing——”

“I think so,” agreed Sandy. “He gave me one gift for my birthday at breakfast. But just now he made me a present of my life.”

“He did that for all of us.” Larry put an arm affectionately around his chum’s shoulders.
133

“A very fine thing, Dick.” Miss Serena smiled gently. “Now you had better go and lie down, and I’ll have the maid bring up some hot cocoa and something for you to eat.”

“That is just what I need, ma’am,” Sandy told her.

“I think we’d better get this crate into the hangar—we’ll get the gardener and the caretaker and push it in,” Dick suggested. “I always get over a scare quicker if I’m busy doing something to take my mind away from it.”

“Very well,” the lady agreed. “I shall have a good lunch ready when you come in.”

She started away, but turned back.

“What caused the—the—trouble?”

“Jeff calls it a ‘jinx’—a ‘hoodoo’,” responded Dick.

“Jeff is silly,” she said with some annoyance. “There are no such things.”

“I don’t know—” Larry took up the argument. “It is not usual for a cable to jam. It might break, but one shouldn’t get caught.”

“I see. Don’t think for a moment, Lawrence, that it was caused by anything but Jeff’s carelessness, because of his fears.”

She went to get their lunch ordered.

“Did I play up to you all right?” Larry asked. “I saw you didn’t want to explain anything.” Dick nodded.
134

“You did just what I wanted,” he said. “Let’s get the airplane in. Then we can talk.”

With others of the new group of servants they took the craft to its place.

As soon as they were alone, Dick climbed up onto the back of the fuselage, dived down into the small space, while Larry waited an agreed signal, in the after seat, and pulled his chum out.

“Great snakes!” cried Sandy, then lowering his voice. “How did that get there?”

Dick, emerging from the fuselage working compartment, displayed a large, fat, round object.

“The life preserver—from the yacht!” gasped Larry.

“How did it get there?” repeated Sandy, stunned.

“Jeff!” said Dick, briefly.

“Oh, no!” declared Larry. “Jeff is a good pilot. He’d never leave anything that could shift about and cause trouble.”

“But how did it get there?” Sandy reiterated. &ldqu............