ated a new command. By the acts of this man who stands beside me,
and by his fellow-explorer, Walter Harkness, the Council has been forced
to take this step.

"That command will rank second only to the Governing Council itself; a
body of men shall compose it who shall be known as the Interstellar
Board of Control." He turned squarely toward Chet. "I am placing in
your hands, Mr. Bullard, your commission as Commander of that Board. The
best minds of all nations will be at your call. Will you accept--will
you gather these men about you and do your part in this great work for
the greater future of mankind?"

The ears of a listening world waited long for an answer. But the eyes of
that world saw a figure whose blond head was suddenly lowered as if to
hide a betrayal of what was in his heart; they saw him raise his bowed
head to stare mutely toward a girl whose eyes of blue were swimming with
happy tears as she gave him a trembling smile--and only then did they
see Chet Bullard draw himself erect, while his voice went out with the
speed of light to a waiting world.

"I accept, Mr. President. Proudly--humbly--I accept!"

And the eyes of the world, if they were understanding eyes, must have
smiled with his, as the Commander of the Interstellar Board of Control
grasped, among others, the congratulatory hand of his subordinate, the
Commander of Air.

But if there were any who expected to read mockery in those smiling
eyes, they had yet to learn the measure of Commander Bullard--"Bullard,
of the I.B.C.!"

End of Project Gutenberg's The Finding of Haldgren, by Charles Willard Diffin

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FINDING OF HALDGREN ***

***** This file should be named 29717.txt or 29717.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/7/1/29717/

Produced by Greg Weeks, Graeme Mackreth and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works