But now the boys' attention was imperatively centered on the rival aeroplane. The wind had suddenly become gusty and the Buzzard was behaving in a most eccentric manner. To the boys several times it looked as if Malvoise had lost entire control of her.
The tents and aeroplane sheds of Mineola were now plainly in view, and the boys could see the black mass of the crowd as it raced out to meet them.
"It will be bad for a landing if they don't keep them back," exclaimed
Frank, as he saw this. "Someone will get hurt."
Suddenly, as a sharper puff than usual came, the Buzzard gave a lurch that Malvoise in vain tried to counteract by using his ailerons. These balancing devices are almost automatic in their control, and usually can be depended on to control an airship to keep an even keel, but this time not even Malvoise's skill could save the Buzzard.
Down she sped, straight as a plummet, for fully fifty feet.
Desperately her driver strove with levers and guiding wheel. But his efforts were of no more avail than if he had idly surrendered to disaster.
Like a stricken bird the Buzzard dropped downward. All her occupant could do was to check the awful speed of her fall by spreading his ailerons to their fullest extent.
Luckily for Malvoise a clump of willows, about a shallow pond, were directly below him in his fall and the Buzzard crashed into these, throwing him out into the soft pond mud in which he received a ducking, but no great harm.
It was the end of the great race.
A few minutes later the Golden Eagle swept to the ground almost at the very door of her aerodrome, and Billy Barnes, Le Blanc, old Eben Joyce and Bluewater Bill rushed excitedly forward to greet the young aviators. Madly the excited crowd pressed about them, among them many reporters from New York and Philadelphia papers, who had been sent to report the details of the great race.