glance.

"Now I _have_ said it!" she exclaimed. "I'm not afraid of him, boys,
really. What do you want me to do?"

Seaton plunged in.

"What we were trying to get up nerve enough to say is that he'd be a
good man on the astronomy job," and Crane added quickly:

"He undoubtedly knows more about it than I do, and it would be a pity to
lose the chance of using him. Besides, Dick and I think it rather
dangerous to leave him so much time to himself, in which to work up a
plan against us."

"He's cooking one right now, I'll bet a hat," Seaton put in, and Crane
added:

"If you are sure that you have no objections, Miss Spencer, we might go
below, where we can have it dark, and all three of us see what we can
make of the stargazing. We are really losing an unusual opportunity."

Margaret hid gallantly any reluctance she might have felt.

"I wouldn't deserve to be here if I can't work with the Doctor and hate
him at the same time."

"Good for you, Peg, you're a regular fellow!" Seaton exclaimed. "You're
a trump!"

* * * * *

Finally, the enormous velocity of the cruiser was sufficiently reduced
to effect a landing, a copper-bearing sun was located, and a course was
laid toward its nearest planet.

As the vessel approached its goal a deep undercurrent of excitement kept
all the passengers feverishly occupied. They watched the distant globe
grow larger, glowing through its atmosphere more and more clearly as a
great disk of white light, its outline softened by the air about it. Two
satellites were close beside it. Its sun, a great, blazing orb, a little
nearer than the planet, looked so great and so hot that Margaret became
uneasy.

"Isn't it dangerous to get so close, Dick? We might burn up, mightn't
we?"

"Not without an atmosphere," he laughed.

"Oh," murmured the girl apologetically, "I might have known that."

Dropping rapidly into the atmosphere of the planet, they measured its
density and analyzed it in apparatus installed for that purpose, finding
that its composition was very similar to the Earth's air and that its
pressure was not enough greater to be uncomfortable. When within one
thousand feet of the surface, Seaton weighed a five-pound weight upon a
spring-balance, finding that it weighed five and a half pounds, thus
ascertaining that the planet was either somewhat larger than the Earth
or more dense. The ground was almost hidden by a rank growth of
vegetation, but