Then, glancing to the left, I saw the battered Jenny. Russ waved a hand; the ship banked back over the D.H. I kept the nose of the plane lined up on the horizon, corrected for even the slightest bump with the ailerons. We were just passing over the outfit’s field--when it happened. I felt the D.H. jerk madly around--to the right! There was a ripping, tearing sound. The joy-stick was twisted from my grip. The right wing surface warped before my eyes! * * * * * As I cut the throttle I realized what had happened. A wing of Healy’s ship had tangled with mine. And the D.H. was finished--I knew that in one flashing second. And I knew, as my hands fumbled with the safety-belt, that the ships had freed themselves again. I tried to hold the nose of the D.H. up--it wouldn’t come up. As we went slowly into the first turns of a spin--a plane flashed downward, off to the right. No--_two_ planes! The Old Lady was going down tangled with the camera-plane! There had been a triple crash! And even as I saw the two ships going down, in a slow spin and almost flatly--my eyes picked up the form of the girl. She was lying flat on the upper surface of the Old Lady’s right wing. Lying motionlessly! She had made the transfer--and then had come the triple crash. * * * * * I stood up in the cockpit, swung a leg over the side to the left, lower wing. We were spinning to the right, and I wanted to get clear on the outside. My right hand gripped the stick, trying to keep the D.H. from going into a tight spin, while my left groped for the dangling ring of the ’chute rip-cord. It found it, and I hooked a finger through the ring. Then I let go of the stick, got my other leg out of the cockpit--let myself be wind-battered away from the ship. I counted five--jerked the ring. There was the crackling sound of the pilot-’chute, as it snapped open--and almost immediately the greater crackling of the bigger spread of silk. The harness tightened about my body. My head was jerked upward. Then I was drifting, shaking off the effects of that plunge--and staring beyond the falling arc of my wing-warped plane. The camera-ship and the Old Lady were above me. My drop had been faster than their slow-spinning fall. And they were close--too close for comfort. I could see things clearly. The girl was out of sight; I couldn’t see above the upper wings of the Jenny. Even as I stared, two objects shot downward from the camera-ship. Lott and the camera-man were getting clear! [Illustration: The camera-ship and the Old Lady were above me--too close for comfort. The girl was out of sight.] Their ’chutes functioned perfectly. They drifted down, within twenty feet of each other. I stared at the crashed, tangled planes. Why hadn’t the girl jumped? And what was the matter with Russ Healy?