selves about that lad; he was one bad hombre. The best they
could hope for was to be marooned on the Dark Moon--left there to live
or to die amid those savage surroundings; and the worst that might
happen--! But Chet refused to think of what alternatives might occur to
the ugly, distorted mind of the man who had them at his mercy.

There was no echo of these thoughts when he spoke; the smile that
flashed across his lean face brought a brief response from the
despondent countenances of his companions.

"Well," Chet observed, and ran his hand through a tangle of blond hair,
"I have heard that the Schwartzmann lines give service, and I reckon
I heard right. Here we were wanting to go back to the Dark Moon,
and,"--he paused to point toward a black portlight where occasional
lights flashed past--"I'll say we're going; going somewhere at least.
All I hope is that that Maxie boy doesn't find the Dark Moon at about
ten thousand per. He may be a great little skipper on a nice, slow,
five-hundred-maximum freighter, but not on this boat. I don't like his
landings."

* * * * *

Diane Delacouer raised her eyes to smile approvingly upon him. "You're
good, Chet," she said; "you are a darn good sport. They knock you down
out of control, and you nose right back up for a forty-thousand foot
zoom. And you try to carry us with you. Well, I guess it's time we got
over our gloom. Now what is going to happen?"

"I'll tell you," said Walter Harkness, looking at his watch: "if that
fool pilot of Schwartzmann's doesn't cut his stern thrust and build up a
bow resistance, we'll overshoot our mark and go tearing on a few hundred
thousand miles in space."

Diane was playing up to Chet's lead.

"_Bien!_" she exclaimed. "A few million, perhaps! Then we may see some
of those Martians we've been speculating about. I hear they are
handsome, my Walter--much better looking than you. Maybe this is all for
the best after all!"

"Say," Harkness protested, "if you two idiots don't know enough to worry
as you ought, I don't see any reason why I should do all the heavy
worrying for the whole crowd. I guess you've got the right idea at that:
take what comes when it gets here--or when we get there."

Small wonder, thought Chet, that Herr Schwartzmann stared at them in
puzzled bewilderment when he flung open the door, and took one long
stride into the room. Stocky, heavy-muscled, he stood regarding them, a
frown of suspicio