daredevil of the Solar System!" he sneered. "Never loses a bet, never turns down a dare!"

I shuddered. "You're telling that one! And besides, a man's got to draw the line somewhere. And I'm drawing it right here. Take me to jail!"

They were really stumped. They hadn't expected me to take this attitude at all. No doubt they had it figured that I'd gratefully throw myself into a sea of ammonia among man-size scorpions just for the hell of it. Nuts! After all, in the pen a man can eat and breathe, and a guard won't reach in and nip off an arm or leg while he's got his back turned. How stupid could they get?

When I finally wore them down and got to my little cell, I looked around it with a feeling of real coziness. I even patted the walls chummily and snapped a salute at the guard. It makes me grind my molars now to think of it. The way that bunch of stuffed shirts in the S.S.C. made a gold-barred chimpanzee out of me has broken my spirit and turned me into an honest trader. Me, Casey Ritter, slickest slicker in the Solar System, led like a precious infant right where I'd flatly refused to go! In plain English, I underestimated the enemy. Feeling safe and secure in the grip of the good old Iron College, I relaxed.

At this strategic point, the enemy planted a stoolie on me. Not in my cell block. They were too smart for that. But we met at recreation, and his mug seemed familiar, like a wisp of smoke where no smoke has got a right to be; and after awhile I braced him.

I was right. I'd met the shrimp before when I was wound up in an asteroid real estate racket. Pard Hoskins was his alias, and he had the tag of being a real slick operator. We swapped yarns for about a week when we met, and then I asked him what's his rap this trip.

"Oh, a pretty good jolt if they can keep hold of me," he says. "I just made a pass at the Killicut Emeralds, that's all, and got nabbed."

"Oh, no!" I moaned. "What were you trying to do, start a feud between us and Mars?"

He shrugged, but his little black-currant eyes began to sparkle with real passion, the high voltage kind that only a woman in a million, or a million in a bank, can kindle in a guy. "Buddy," he said reverently, "I'd start more than that just to get me mitts on them stones again! Why, you ain't never seen jools till you've seen them! Big as hen's eggs, an even dozen of 'em; and flawless, I'm a-shoutin', not a flaw!" His eyes watered at the memory, yearning 

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