Rick lost track after that. For a moment he stood amazed, then jumped to help Chahda, who was being tackled from behind by one of the Portuguese.

Canton Charlie's was in an uproar. The fight had spread like fire in dead leaves. Rick hadn't been aware of the place filling up, but it was definitely full. Bottles and gla.s.ses flew.

He ducked a wild swing with a chair, then as he stood up he brought the table with him, dumping it over on three Chinese who were struggling with Scotty. A fist caught him behind the ear. He kicked backward, then whirled, his elbow catching a Filipino sailor in the chest. The Filipino sprawled backward.

A bottle whizzed past Rick's ear. He ducked, then rushed to Zircon. The big scientist was holding a British seaman in each hand, busily knocking their heads together. Scotty rose out of his path, swinging. A Eurasian who had been about to swing with a bottle stopped short, swaying, as Scotty's fist connected. The bottle dropped on Chahda, who was crawling out from under a table.

An American sailor rushed past, one arm catching Rick and sending him sprawling. Rick swung wildly, and pulled his punch just in time to keep from bashing Keaton-Yeats, who was busy with a swarthy man with gold rings in his ears. The place was a madhouse. Bradley went headlong at Rick's feet, jumped up again like a rubber ball, and plunged into the fray. Rick saw with amazement that he was grinning from ear to ear.

A Portuguese rose from nowhere and aimed a roundhouse swing at Rick's head. He ducked, then put all his weight into an overhand chop, missed, and fell against the Portuguese. The man threw him off and caught him behind the ear with a short hook. Rick shook his head, dazed. Another punch caught him on the cheek. He lost his temper then and flailed out.

One fist connected solidly. The Portuguese vanished, to be replaced by someone else. Rick swung until his arms were leaden. Then, in the midst of the turmoil, came a stentorian bellow.

"Here! Listen!"

He turned. Canton Charlie was standing on the bar, and a sawed-off shotgun roamed impartially over the crowd. "The first man who pulls a knife gets this!" he shouted.

There was a roar from the mob, and the instant of silence dissolved into a melee again. Rick turned back to see how his friends were doing and saw a fist coming at him. He tried to bring his hands up, but he was too slow. The fist got bigger and bigger and bigger and exploded into bright lights. His knees buckled. He drifted off into peace and quiet.

CHAPTER XX

Home Flight

"The Golden Mouse," Keaton-Yeats said judiciously, "is rapidly becoming a purple mouse." He tilted Rick's face to the light. "I also see other colors. By the time you get home, a rainbow will be rather pale and dull by comparison."

"I got a mouse hung on me all right," Rick said. "And I didn't even see who did it."

"I did," Scotty volunteered. "It was a British seaman. Chahda polished him off with a bottle before you even hit the floor."

Zircon wrapped gauze around Bradley's knuckles. "For an ethnologist, which is a peaceful profession, you are mighty quick to take offense,"

he stated.

"My boss is a sudden man," Chahda said from the bed where he lay with a wet cloth on his head.

They were in their room at the Peninsular Hotel. Rick had recovered under the urging of a bucket of water in the hands of Canton Charlie. He was still wet. He stripped off his shirt and grinned as he looked around him. All of them bore souvenirs. His own probably was the most colorful, consisting of a black eye that covered nearly half of his face. Scotty had a welt across his forehead that would last several days. Bradley had lost most of the skin off the knuckles of his right hand. Zircon moved gingerly, favoring his bruised ribs. Chahda and Keaton-Yeats bore painful egg-shaped lumps from swung bottles.

"Happens at Charlie's every night," Bradley said. "Can't disappoint the customers. Only a question of who starts it. Tonight I happened to be the one. You get so you rather enjoy it after a while."

"As a sport, it will never replace checkers," Scotty said. He winced as his fingers explored the welt on his forehead.

Rick chuckled. He could see what Bradley meant. As long as Canton Charlie's shotgun ensured fair play, to the extent of no knives, it was just a free-for-all such as might happen anywhere--at least where seamen gathered.

"It's like swimming in cold water," he said. "Getting in is tough, but it's kind of fun once you've made the plunge."

Bradley flexed his bandaged hand. "That's right. Now, it's getting late and I still want to hear about your experiences. Hobart, want to pick up where we left off?"

They found seats on the beds and in the wicker chairs while the big scientist told of their adventures in Korse Lenken, with a.s.sists from the boys. When he had finished, Keaton-Yeats sighed. "I wish now I'd gone with you," he said. "Nothing dull where you Americans go. While you were barging around caves, I was making change at the bank. Very dull."

"I guess that ties up all the loose ends," Bradley said. "And it makes quite a package."

"Even without a nuclear reactor or any potential atom bombs," Rick added. "Anyway, we couldn't know until we investigated that there wasn't some kind of atomic menace in the offing."

"Right," Zircon agreed. "I must say, however, that I have a fine story for one of the scientific journals. My a.n.a.lysis of the water samples shows a layer almost a foot deep of nearly pure deuterium. It's an amazing phenomenon which will require more of a theory than just the heavy water settling. Settling wouldn't produce a fraction of the amount. I'm taking the samples home for further a.n.a.lysis, along with some samples of limestone from the caves. Who knows? This may produce a scientific finding of some significance."

"It may," Bradley agreed. "I hope it does, because then the trip will have made some contribution to the sum total of our knowledge besides contributing information to the JANIG files."

"And the files of our office," Keaton-Yeats added.

Rick looked at Chahda. "What now for you? Going to stay in the Far East for a while?"

The Hindu boy smiled. "Not so very long. I think now I go back to Bombay, see my family for a while, then I will come to Spindrift."

"Swell!" Scotty exclaimed. "We've missed you, half pint."

Zircon and Rick echoed the sentiment.

"No point in our staying on," the scientist said. "If we can get s.p.a.ce, we'll take off on tomorrow's flight." He smiled. "It will be good to get back to our peaceful lab, eh, lads?"

"Yes," Scotty agreed.

"Definitely," Rick said.

And even as they spoke, halfway across the world hammer strokes completed a structure that would mean anything but peace, a story to be told in the next volume:

STAIRWAY TO DANGER

_The_ RICK BRANT SCIENCE-ADVENTURE _Stories_

BY JOHN BLAINE

THE ROCKET'S SHADOW THE LOST CITY SEA GOLD 100 FATHOMS UNDER THE WHISPERING BOX MYSTERY THE PHANTOM SHARK SMUGGLERS' REEF THE CAVES OF FEAR STAIRWAY TO DANGER THE GOLDEN SKULL THE WAILING OCTOPUS THE ELECTRONIC MIND READER THE SCARLET LAKE MYSTERY