"You certainly sounded savage, Dick. I almost thought you really meant it!" Dorothy chuckled.
"I did mean it, Dot. Those fellows are mighty keen on detecting bluffs. If I hadn't meant it, and if they hadn't known that I meant it, I'd never have got away with it."
"But you couldn't have meant it, Dick! You wouldn't have destroyed the Osnomians, surely—you know you wouldn't."
"No, but I would have destroyed what was left of the Urvanians, and all five of us knew exactly how it would have turned out and exactly what I would have done about it—that's why they all pulled in their horns."
"I don't know what would have happened," interjected Margaret. "What would have?"
"With this new stuff the Urvanians would have wiped the Osnomians out. They are an older race, and so much better in science and mechanics that the Osnomians wouldn't have stood much chance, and knew it. Incidentally, that's why I'm having them build our new ship. They'll put a lot of stuff into it that Dunark's men would miss—maybe some stuff that even the Fenachrone haven't got. However, though it might seem that the Urvanians had all the best of it, Urvan knew that I had something up my sleeve besides my bare arm—and he knew that I'd clean up what there was left of his race if they polished off the Osnomians."
"What a frightful chance you were taking, Dick!" gasped Dorothy.
"You have to be hard to handle those folks—and believe me, I was a forty-minute egg right then. They have such a peculiar mental and moral slant that we can hardly understand them at all. This idea of co-operation is so new to them that it actually dazed all four of them even to consider it."
"Do you suppose they will fight, anyway?" asked Crane.
"Absolutely not. Both nations have an inflexible code of honor, such as it is, and lying is against both codes. That's one thing I like about them—I'm sort of honest myself, and with either of these races you need nothing signed or guaranteed."