"This game," said Moe. "It's awful, Mr. Meek. Honestly. The crowd has
got the fellers so worked up, it's apt to be mass murder."
"I know it," Meek agreed, "but you can't stop it now. The Junior
Chamber of Commerce would take the hide off anyone who even said he
would like to see it stopped. It's more publicity than Saturn has
gotten since the first expeditions were lost here."
"I don't like it," declared Moe, stolidly.
"I don't like it either," Meek confessed. "Gus and those other fellows
on his team think I'm an expert. I told them what I knew about space
polo, but it wasn't much. Trouble is they think it's everything
there is to know. They figure they're a cinch to win and they got
their shirts bet on the game. If they lose, they'll more than likely
space-walk me."
Fingers tapped Meek's shoulders and he twisted around. A red face
loomed above him, a cigarette drooping from the corner of its lips.
"Hear you say you was coaching the Twenty-three bunch?"
Meek gulped.
"Billy Jones, that's me," said the lips with the cigarette. "Best damn
sports writer ever pounded keys. Been trying to find out who you was.
Nobody else knows. Treat you right."
"You must be wrong," said Meek.
"Never wrong," insisted Jones. "Nose for news. Smell it out. Like this.
_Sniff. Sniff._"
His nose crinkled in imitation of a bloodhound, but his face didn't
change otherwise. The cigarette still dangled, pouring smoke into a
watery left eye.
"Heard the guy call you Meek," said Jones. "Name sounds familiar.
Something about Juno, wasn't it? Rounded up a bunch of crooks. Found a
space monster of some sort."
Another hand gripped Meek by the shoulder and literally jerked him
around.
"So you're the guy!" yelped the owner of the hand. "I been looking for
you. I've a good notion to smack you in the puss."
"Now, Bud," yelled Moe, in mounting fear, "you leave him alone. He
ain't done a thing."
Meek gaped at the angry face of the hulking man, who still had his
shoulder in the grip of a monstrous paw.
Bud Craney! The ring-rat that had stolen Gus' injector! The captain of
the Thirty-seven team.
"If there was room," Craney grated, "I'd wipe up the floor with you.
But since there ain't, I'm just plain going to hammer you down about
halfway into it."
"But he ain't done nothing!" shrilled Moe.
"He's an outsider, ain't he?" demanded Craney. "What business he got
coming in here and messing around with things?"
"I'm not messing around with things, Mr. Craney," Meek declared, trying
to be dignified about it. But it was hard to be dignified with someone
lifting one by the shoulder so one's toes just barely touched the floor.
[Illustration: _"Ulp!" ulped Mr. Meek shakily._]
"All that's the matter with you," insisted the dangling Meek, "is that
you know Gus and his men will give you a whipping. They'd done it,
anyhow. I haven't helped them much. I haven't helped them hardly at
all."