I followed his gesture and, by luck, caught the eye of a driver I knew. I waved and jerked my thumb at the spacers beside me. "Let's go!" said Howlet as the tractor slowed. "Thanks for everything, Tony. Get yourself some sleep; the night watches in these domes are rough." Konnel waited until they were a few steps away. Even then, he hesitated. "Forget it!" I said. "You aren't the first spacer they had to pump out of some odd corner. Look me up when you get back!" He shook hands and trotted after his friends. They scrambled up the ladder to the cab. The tractor picked up speed, lumbering into the airlock. Later, a little after noon, I crawled out of bed and watched the flare of their pipes as the ship streaked up into the dark Martian sky. I hoped they would make it--almost as much as I wished it could have been me. Well, I still come out to the wall of whatever dome I find myself in, to watch the sky a while--not that I'll see _those_ boys coming down at this late date! They must have splattered to a puddle on Jupiter, or slipped back into the sun, or taken up a cold, dark orbit out where they'll never bother anyone. Nobody will ever know for sure, I suppose. If I had it to do over again? No, of course I don't feel funny about it. If they weren't the ones, it would have been another crew. By the law of averages, a certain number of bad tries seems to go with every new push out into space. Maybe there's no reason it has to be like that, but it always has. When the bad luck is used up, someone makes a new frontier. Why say "superstition"? Each new orbit out from the sun has cost plenty in money, ships, and lives; it's the admission price. Sure, it was too bad about Konnel and his little girl--who, by the way, later married a very important man in Asaph Dome. It would have been nice to see Meadows wind up rich, or for Howlet to become mayor of the dome, but what could I do? Which one should I have talked into staying for the sake of love or money or power, without even being able to go in his place? Every time Man pushes ahead a little, a percentage of the pushers pay the fare. Still, it will be healthier if we push out of this planetary system before someone else pushes in. For all we know, they may be on the way. THE END * * * * * End of Project Gutenberg's Fee of the Frontier, by Horace Brown Fyfe