torym was being a bit too artful. I could not see the point of all this trickiness. It annoyed me because Wimp had to travel most of the time sitting on the lap of Vans Holors. You see, Bruny Hudells took up most of the room in that flying egg. I'd trust Vans with my life. All the same, there are some Martian customs that I don't really like. Married women sitting in other men's laps is one of them. They saw no harm in it.
So, I was not sorry when we began to get near to the country of Kuspilad. There were some narrow, twisty caverns here. The traffic lights, set in the rocks over our heads, were at "Stop!" The great liner idled, waiting.
Some blunder here, I thought. The royal party should have had right of way. "Aha!" exclaimed Hektorum. "I thought Grumbold would show up!"
What alarmed him I couldn't see, until I noticed a lot of black specks darting out of the rocks at the waiting air-liner. Through the telescope, I saw that they were pterodactyls. Prince Grumbold had a lot of those prehistoric leathery-winged creatures that were extinct on Earth millions of years ago, and that he trained to do all sorts of dirty work for him.
"Don!" said Vans, "There's a fight going on there !"
"But for once, Holors," said Hektorum, firmly, "it is a fight that you will take no part in."
I saw the face of Vans twist in pain. In front of his eyes a fight was happening. And he was not in it. It hurt.
"I should have been on that liner," he growled.
"Me too," said Hudells.
The officials of the air-liner were putting up a good show, seeing what few arms they had and what numbers were against them. Pteros, paralyzed in the air by deathrays, nose dived, men on their backs falling off. But at last the gallant crew was wiped out. No more deathrays stabbed out. Pteros perched on the drifting liner, their riders getting off. The liner turned and went off another way, pteros all around.
"Grumbold thinks you and Don are in the passenger cabins on that liner," Hektorum explained. "Now all we have to do is to follow, and we shall be led to Grumbold's hide-out."
A subtle lad, that Martian detective. I'll say that for him. If I had been managing that affair I would have been in Grumbold's clutches by then. No use saying I wouldn't.
So, Wimp still on the huge lap of Vans Holors, and me on the lap of Wimp, we trailed the stolen liner.
THIS time it was not so easy. When we followed the liner before we had known exactly which way it was going. This time we did not. We did not dare let it out of our sight.
It led us into a wild, lonely cavern. But in the center of the cavern we saw what made our hearts jump. It was a great fat-bellied space ship.
"I must admit I was not prepared for this," Hektorum admitted, losing that "Don't you think I'm clever?" air of his.
We saw the passengers all marched out and looked over. Being so far away, we could not tell whether the conspirators noticed that their birds were not in the net. But soon all went into the space-ship, and the ship itself blasted off.
"Ah!" groaned the detective, "I'm beaten. Weil Hektorum outwitted. After this I'll keep bees! My secret air-egg cannot fly in space."
"Beaten?" snapped Wimp. "Nonsense! Get to the nearest observer post. Get the space-ship trailed!"
"Ah yes!" exclaimed Hektorum,
