nd Walt!--you old son-of-a-gun!" He found
himself clinging to a girl's soft hand with one of his, while with the
other he reached for that of her companion. But Walt Harkness' arm
went about his shoulders instead.

"I'd like to hammer you plenty," Harkness was saying, "and I don't
even dare give you a friendly slam on the back. How's the side where
they got you with the spear?--and how are you? How soon will you be
ready to start back? What about--"

Diane Delacouer raised her one free hand to stop the flood of
questions. "My dear," she protested, "give Chet a chance. He must be
dying for information."

"I was dying for another reason the last time I saw you," Chet
reminded her, "--up on the Dark Moon. But it seems that you got me
back here in time for repairs. And now what?" His nurse came into the
room with extra chairs; Chet waited till she was gone before he
repeated: "Now what? When do we go back?"

Harkness did not answer at once. Instead he crossed to the newscaster
in its compact, metal case. The voice was still speaking softly; at a
touch of a switch it ceased, and in the silence came the soft rush of
sound that meant the telautotype had taken up its work. Beneath a
glass a paper moved, and words came upon it from a hurricane of
type-bars underneath. The instrument was printing the news story as
rapidly as any voice could speak it.

Harkness read the words for an instant, then let the paper pass on to
wind itself upon a spool. It had still been telling of the gigantic
hoax that this eccentric American had attempted and Harkness repeated
the words.

"A hoax!" he exclaimed, and his eyes, for a moment, flashed angrily
beneath the dark hair that one hand had disarranged. "I would like to
take that facetious bird out about a thousand miles and let him play
around with the serpents we met. But, why get excited? This is all
Schwartzmann's doing. The tentacles of that man's influence, reach out
like those of an octopus."

* * * * *

Chet ranged himself alongside. Tall and slim and blond, he contrasted
strongly with this other man, particularly in his own quiet
self-control as against Harkness' quick-flaring anger.

"Take it easy, Walt," he advised. "We'll show them. But I judge that
you have been razzed a bit. It's a pretty big story for them to
swallow without proof. Why didn't you show them the ship? Or why
didn't you let Diane and me back up your yarn? And you haven't
answ