ust
would not give out--"

"Three weeks--it isn't very long, Ollie."

"No. Maybe not."

From across the room somebody was saying, "If the _Comet_ hadn't smashed
on us, damn me but I'd ask the Commander to let some of us take her
back. The discarded equipment could go."

"Shut up, Billy. She is smashed."

The little _Comet_, cruising in search of the ore, had come to grief
just as the ore was found. It lay now on the crater floor with its nose
bashed into an upflung spire of rock. Wrecked beyond repair. Save for
the pre-arrangement with the _Planetara_, the Grantline party would have
been helpless here on the Moon. Knowledge of that--although no one ever
suspected but that the _Planetara_ would come safely--served to add to
the men's depression. They were cut off, virtually helpless on a strange
world. Their signalling devices were inadequate even to reach Earth.
Grantline's power batteries were running low.[F] He could not attempt
wide-flung signals without jeopardizing the power necessary for the
routine of his camp in the event of the _Planetara_ being delayed. Nor
was his electro-telescope adequate to pick small objects at any great
distance.[G]

All of Grantline's effort, in truth, had gone into equipment for the
finding and gathering of the treasure. The safety of the expedition had
to that extent been neglected.

Swenson was mentioning that now.

"You all agreed to it," Johnny said shortly. "Every man here voted that,
above everything, what we wanted was to get the radium."

[F] The Gravely storage tanks--the power used by the Grantline
expedition--were heavy and bulky affairs. Economy of space on the Comet
allowed but few of them.

[G] Electro-telescopes of most modern use and power were too large and
used too much power to be available to Grantline.

* * * * *

A dynamic little fellow, this Johnny Grantline. Short of temper
sometimes, but always just, and a perfect leader of men. In stature he
was almost as small as Snap. But he was thick-set, with a smooth shaven,
keen-eyed, square-jawed face, and a shock of brown tousled hair. A man
of thirty-five, though the decision of his manner, the quiet dominance
of his voice, mode him seem older. He stood up now, surveying the
blue-lit glassite room with its low ceiling close overhead. He was
bowlegged; in movement he seemed to roll with a stiff-legged gait like
some sea captain of former days on the deck of his