blazes is Charley?"

"Charley is back on Titan, and probably dead," replied Ross easily. "He
wouldn't pay any attention to us when we suggested plugging up the old
tunnels when we started mining that uranium, so the oxygen which we were
sucking off from the main screen supply took too much. The screens
started to go. Practically the whole city is flooded with ammonia gas
and it's being abandoned."

Roger and Tom stood quietly, listening, and when Roger heard the news he
turned to Tom with a questioning look on his face. Tom merely nodded
grimly.

"But what are you doing here with this load of pitchblende?" Quent
persisted.

"Everything would have been all right, even with the screens letting
go," explained Ross, "if it hadn't been for Corbett and that big jerk
Astro. They followed me out to the warehouse and down into the mine.
Good thing we caught them, or we'd be on our way to a prison asteroid
right now."

Quent glared over at Tom. "And Charley spilled the beans about the whole
thing, eh?"

"Not exactly, but the Solar Guard knows enough to be suspicious,"
replied Ross. "We had some trouble with the radiation-detection gear and
wanted to haul it out to the hide-out for Manning to check. We decided
to bring out as much of the stuff as we had mined, and when we caught
Corbett and Astro snooping around, we made them load the ship. Corbett,
here, got smart and Astro escaped. In the fight, Charley fell out of the
ship. I don't know if he got away or not."

"Do we have a whole shipload of the stuff?" asked Quent.

Ross grinned. "About two million credits' worth."

Quent rubbed his hands together. "We're in clover." He laughed and
slapped his brother on the back. "Well, I suppose the Solar Guard is
looking for us by now?"

Ross grinned. "Right. So we pull the old trick, eh? We have two very
likely prospects right there." He pointed to Roger and Tom.

"What is that supposed to mean?" snapped Roger.

"You'll find out, squirt," sneered Quent Miles.

"Wait a minute, Quent," said Ross. "I just thought of something. No one
knows there are two of us, except these two punks here. We can't work
the old gag. We can only use one of them."

"How do you mean?"

"Simple. The Solar Guard thinks Manning took it on the lam from
Ganymede, right?"

Quent nodded.

"Well, we take Manning, dress him up in one of our outfits and stick him
aboard the empty ship alongside. The ship blows up, and should they find
anything of M