and realized that the girl had been pitched in with him. The snapping of a lock was followed by the tramp of departing footsteps and then by silence.

After considering the idea a few minutes, Tolliver managed to sit up.

He had his wind back. But when he fingered the swelling lump behind his left ear, a sensation befuddled him momentarily.

"I'm sorry about that," murmured Betty.

Tolliver grunted. Sorrow would not reduce the throbbing, nor was he in a mood to undertake an explanation of why Jeffers did not like him anyway.

"I think perhaps you're going to have a shiner," remarked the girl.

"Thanks for letting me know in time," said Tolliver.

The skin under his right eye did feel a trifle tight, but he could see well enough. The abandoned and empty look of the office worried him.

"What can we use to get out of here?" he mused.

"Why should we try?" asked the girl. "What can he do?"

"You'd be surprised. How did you catch on to him so soon?"

"Your paycheck," said Betty. "As soon as I saw that ridiculous amount, it was obvious that there was gross mismanagement here. It had to be Jeffers."

Tolliver groaned.

"Then, on the way over here, he as good as admitted everything. You didn't hear him, I guess. Well, he seemed to be caught all unaware, and seemed to blame you for it."

"Sure!" grumbled the pilot. "He thinks I told you he was grafting or smuggling, or whatever he has going for him here. That's why I want to get out of here—before I find myself involved in some kind of fatal accident!"

"What do you know about the crooked goings-on here?" asked Betty after a startled pause.

"Nothing," retorted Tolliver. "Except that there are some. There are rumors, and I had a halfway invitation to join in. I think he sells things to the mining colonies and makes a double profit for himself by claiming the stuff lost in transit. You didn't think you scared him that bad over a 

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