Connel grinned. "I"ll bet you a plugged credit that if you had opened that door you"d have been frozen stiffer than a snowman on Pluto."
"Well, anyhow," said Tom happily, "we got what we came after."
"What was that?" asked Strong.
"A tyrannosaurus!" replied the curly-haired cadet.
"And that"s another thing," said Connel. "That tyrannosaurus we killed was a pet of the Nationalists. I don"t mean a household pet, but it fitted into their plans nicely. The tyranno"s lair was near the top of that canyon. Any time a stray hunter came along, the tyrannosaurus would scare him away. So when you three came along and said you were deliberately hunting for a tyrannosaurus, they got worried."
"Worried?" asked Roger. "Why?"
"They thought you were actually hunting or investigating them, and when I started nosing around, they were sure. That"s why Sinclair ordered his boys to burn down his plantation--to try to throw us off the track. So you see," Connel concluded, "your summer leave really started the ball rolling against them."
"Summer leave!" shouted Roger. "What day is it?"
"The twenty-ninth of August," replied Strong.
"Oh, no!" moaned the blond-haired cadet. "We start back to cla.s.s in three days!"
"Three days!" roared Astro. "But--but it"ll take three days to write up our reports of everything that"s happened! We won"t have any time for fun!"
"Fun!" snorted Connel. "Fun is for little boys. You three s.p.a.ce-brained, rocket-headed idiots are s.p.a.cemen!"
[Ill.u.s.tration]