WHEN TROUBLE DOUBLES
“They’re gone!” Monk exclaimed in his small voice.
“Yeah,” Renny rumbled. “You can see that they were around recently, too. Here’s a match one of them was chewing on. The end is still wet.”
Doc and the two men stood on the edge of the blind canyon which penetrated the line of cliffs. They had approached with the greatest of caution. They were sure the ambushers had not seen or heard them. Yet the gang was gone.
Doc Savage listened intently; training had given his ears a keenness which rivaled that of a jungle creature. But they picked up no sound.
“The gang isn’t in the vicinity,” he decided aloud.
“But how’d they get tipped off?” Renny growled. “How did——”
He shut his thin lips tightly on the rest.
Two loud reports came snapping through the night! They were sharp. Their echoes bounced back and forth with an uproar that sounded like a fantastic dragon coughing!
Monk, confused by the multitude of echoes, demanded: “Where did the shots come from?”
“From the Oveja camp!” Doc decided.
They listened. But a dead stillness had fallen. There were no more shots.
“We’d better go back!” Doc declared.
The bronze man whipped over the brink of the cliff. Below, the drop was almost sheer. Footholds were few and unpleasantly precarious. Yet, Doc seemed to take no particular pains with his going. His speed seemed unaffected by the peril of a fall.
Monk and Renny, tackling the dangerous descent, found it necessary to lower themselves a few inches at a time. Doc was far ahead of them by the time they reached the bottom.
Coming in view of the camp some time later, Monk and Renny received a surprise. They had expected to find violence. However, there was nothing about the scene to indicate anything desperate had occurred.
Señor and Señorita Oveja and El Rabanos stood in the moonlight. Long Tom and Johnny were near. Doc Savage was to one side.
The pig, Habeas Corpus, was galloping slow circles in the moonlight. The shoat’s running gait was more than ever like that of a dog.
Monk stared at his pet. “Where did Habeas come from?”
“It came tearing through the brush,” Doc explained. “Thinking it was a prowler, Johnny fired a couple of shots in the air. Those were the shots we heard.”
“I’m sure Patricia took him back with her,” Monk declared. “Ham must have turned him loose. That’s the kind of a trick the shyster would pull. He don’t think a whole lot of Habeas Corpus.”
“I imagine his opinion of the pig is improving a little,” Doc declared.
Monk’s jaw fell. “What do you mean, Doc?”
By way of answer, Doc Savage produced his tiny lantern, which threw ultra-violet rays. He switched it on, and played the beam on Habeas Corpus.
Letters in an electric blue flame sprang out on the pig’s back. Due to the uncertainty of the bristled surface on which they had been drawn, the letters were large and irregular. Each time the pig moved, they seemed to convulse. The letters spelled two words.
SLEEP——GETTING——
“Holy cow!” Renny muttered. “What’s that mean?”
“Ham’s idea of a joke!” Monk growled.
Doc Savage set out swiftly in the direction of the cabin.
“I hardly think it’s a joke,” he called grimly. “Long Tom, you stay here and guard these three prisoners.”
The electrical wizard nodded, and turned back to watch Señor and Señorita Oveja and El Rabanos.
The other three men ran in Doc’s wake toward the cabin.
* * * *
The cabin was silent as a house of death. It might have been a tomb of logs, erected on the shore of the little inlet. There was no night breeze to flutter leaves in the surrounding brush. Small waves were piling sloppily against the shore. Out on the sea, moonbeams glanced in long silver shafts.
Doc Savage was first to approach the cabin. Renny, Monk, and Johnny brought up the rear. They did not want to spoil any sign with their clumsy tramping.
Using his flashlight, which gave a powerful beam, Doc Savage made a quick inspection of the house. If he had expected signs of violence, he was disappointed. The place was in a no more topsy-turvy condition than it had been when he left.
But there was no sign of Patricia, Ham, or the fat Indian servant.
“It’s all right for you fellows to come in!” Doc called, after his first cursory inspection.
Monk lumbered in and looked around. “That’s funny! I don’t see any signs of a fight. And Ham ain’t the kind to give up without a scrap.”
Instead of answering this directly, Doc Savage indicated a black smear on the wall of a bedroom. This had the shape of a wolf, with an unpleasantly human face.
“The werewolf!” Monk ejaculated.
“Placed there recently—no doubt by the gang who captured our friends,” Doc replied. “The presence of the werewolf mark indicates why there was no struggle.”
“How do you figure that?” Monk questioned.
“The strange sleep we have not been able to explain,” Doc reminded him. “It seems to strike coincident with the appearance of these werewolf marks.”
Doc led the way to the kitchen. Fresh food stood on the table. A sandwich lay on a plate. One bite was missing.
“They must’ve been having a snack to eat when the thing happened,” Renny said.
A saucer, holding a large lump of butter, stood on the table. Doc handed this to Monk.
“Analyze it,” he said.
“For crying out loud!” Monk grunted. “What for?”
“Search for the presence of the following chemicals,” Doc said, and rattled off a half dozen highly technical laboratory terms.
The chemical terminology was unintelligible to Renny and Johnny. Both were well-educated men, but it was doubtful if either could have picked two comprehensible words out of the list.
Monk nodded with perfect understanding, however. Behind Monk’s low forehead, there did not seem room for a teaspoonful of brains. But his looks were deceiving. A roster of the three greatest living chemists would certainly have included Monk.
Taking the platter of butter, Monk went into the room where he kept his portable laboratory. He set to work.
Doc Savage peered closely at the kitchen floor, then took his portable ultra-violet lantern out of his pocket, switched it on, and played the invisible beams on the floor.
A puddle of blue fire seemed to spring into being.
Renny dropped to a knee and rubbed an enormous hand through the glowing spot.
“It’s the chalk we use to do invisible writing,” he said. “Ham must have dropped his piece. It’s been stepped on.”
“I think we stepped on it while wandering around in here,” Doc said. “My opinion is that Ham, Patricia, and the squaw were in here eating when they felt the weird sleep begin to creep over them. Ham managed to scrawl those words on the pig, Habeas Corpus. He dropped the chalk as he passed out.”
Outdoors, a voice hailed loudly.
“Ahoy, the cabin!” it cried. “Don’t shoot me!”
* * * *
Renny and Johnny sprang to a window and looked out. They could see nothing.
Doc’s flashlight went out. It made no sound doing so, for the switch was noiseless. The darkness which clamped down was black enough to be solid. Silence lay over the cabin and the surrounding timber. The man who had hailed did not do so again.
“That was Long Tom!” Doc said unexpectedly.
“If it was, his voice was changed!” rumbled big-fisted Renny.
“Something has happened to him, all right,” Doc agreed. “But it was his voice.”
The bronze man’s tone, without seeming to become any louder, suddenly acquired a remarkable carrying quality. It rolled out of the cabin and far away into the brush.
“Come on in, Long Tom!” he said. “What’s happened to you?”
There was the sound of shuffling footsteps. Long Tom appeared. The pale-skinned electrical wizard was something of a wreck. He was skinned and bruised, and carried the beginnings of two black eyes.
Long Tom’s front teeth were of a large protruding variety. Two of these were missing. The missing teeth had the effect of giving his voice a rather comical, lisping quality. He sounded very much like an irate turkey gobbler.
Monk thrust his head in a door, looked at Long Tom, said: “For cryin’ in my sleep! Don’t he look funny without them buck teeth!”
“What happened to Señor and Señorita Oveja and El Rabanos,” Doc asked Long Tom.
“They took a powder!” gritted the electrical wizard.
“I thought you were guarding them,” Renny snorted. A wide grin sat on the big-fisted engineer’s usually solemn face. He seemed tickled by the ludicrous appearance which the missing teeth gave the electrical wizard.
“Señor Oveja picked up a rock and whangoed me,” Long Tom growled through his missing teeth.
“How’d he catch you off guard?”
The truth, even if it hurt, was the custom of Doc’s aides. Long Tom squirmed, felt of the gap where his teeth were missing.
“The darn girl was making eyes at me,” he admitted.
Everybody laughed.
“They hit you, then fled?” Doc asked. There was no criticism in his tone.
“Yep,” Long Tom admitted. “Señor Oveja followed the rock up with his fists. He walloped me plenty, what I meant! The rock had knocked me too dizzy to dodge.”
“Didn’t you try to trail ’em?”
“Sure! Kind of a strange thing happened then, Doc. They had not gone far before they managed to get guns. They cut down on me with several shots. I couldn’t see ’em. Monkeying around after ’em was useless, with me disarmed.”
“Guns!” Renny ejaculated. “But we took their guns when we seized them in their camp.”
“Yeah. They must have had other weapons hidden in the brush.”
Doc said: “Monk, how about analyzing that butter?”
Monk nodded and returned to his work over the portable chemical laboratory. He had spread his paraphernalia over a large table. Several of the mixing trays were giving off strong-smelling odors.
Going outdoors, Doc searched for tracks. Finding them was a simple matter for his trained eye. In addition to the tracks of Patricia, Ham, and the squaw, there were prints of at least half a dozen other men. The trail did not wander, but headed for the shore.
The procession of footprints crossed a spot where the ground was soft. Doc got down on all fours to make an examination; then he stood up.
“The same gang that we rescued Pat from has seized her again,” he said. “I’ve seen some of those footprints so often they’re beginning to look like the tracks of old friends.”
The trail terminated near the boathouse. Certain marks in the soft sand might have been made by canoe keels. Doc looked into the boathouse. The canoes which had been stored there were missing.
“They came by land,” he said. “But they left by water. That was a wise trick on their part. We haven’t a chance of trailing them over water.”
At this point, Monk came running from the direction of the cabin. He was excited. He had never looked more like a gorilla than now.
The pig, Habeas Corpus, bounded at his heels, making frantic efforts to keep up.
“I’ve got it!” Monk shouted. “I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” Doc demanded.
“The stuff in the butter!” Monk bawled. “You know how butter absorbs the odor of any smelly food you put in the refrigerator with it? Well, when the house was saturated with this stuff, the butter absorbed enough of it for me to find it by making an analysis.”
“Listen, you homely missing link!” Renny rumbled. “What have you found?”
“The stuff which caused the mysterious sleep,” Monk grinned. “It’s an odorless and colorless gas which is poisonous if inhaled long enough.”
Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny were plenty surprised at this development. Doc Savage, however, had expected it. He had already surmised the probable cause of the weird slumber. So closely had he guessed that he had told Monk what chemical components to look for.
“No doubt the stuff was used to kill Alex Savage,” Monk said. “To a physician who did not have much experience, and who did not suspect foul play, the effects of the stuff might look like heart failure.”
Long Tom grimaced, felt of the gap in his teeth. “I didn’t think the stuff was poisonous. You know it didn’t kill us on the train.”
“That was because you didn’t get enough of it,” Doc replied. “I thought at first that the attack on the train was made merely to frighten us. Since then, I’ve learned more of the nature of these fellows. They would as soon kill us as try to scare us.
“Just why such a small quantity of gas was injected into our train compartment is hard to explain. Perhaps the fellow administering the gas was frightened away. The stuff must have been sent into the compartment through the crack at the bottom of the door.”
Doc ended his long speech abruptly, and cupped a palm back of an ear. He stood thus for several seconds, perfectly rigid.
“There’s a boat coming!” he said. “It sounds like an outboard engine.”
A minute passed—two—three. The others began to wonder if Doc could have been mistaken. Then they heard the sound of the boat.
“Probably the kidnapers coming back to make a deal!” Renny boomed.
“The boat is coming straight in from the open sea,” Doc decided.
The boat nosed in past the floating mail box. It became distinguishable in the moonlight. It was simply a square-sterned canoe, fitted with an outboard motor.
“Ahoy, señors!” called a hoarse voice.
“I’ve got a notion to take a shot at him!” Renny rumbled. “Bet I can hit him!”
“And then they’d bump Ham, Patricia, and the squaw!” Monk grunted. “Don’t be a dope!”
Monk was very earnest. Although Monk and Ham seemed continually on the point of flying at each other’s throats, and insulted each other with vigor and delight, either would have risked his life for the other. On occasion, each had done so.
“What do you want?” Doc called to the distant men.
“The ivory block, Señor Savage!” the fellow shouted back.
“We haven’t got the block!” Doc told him.
“You cannot deceive us, hombre!” the reply came volleying back. “The Señorita Savage had it. She admitted that fact when she was our prisoner earlier.”
“She thought she had it,” Doc corrected him. “When she looked in the hiding place, the block was gone.”
“We are not interested in hearing a smooth story, Señor Savage,” said the distant man. “I came to inform you of a fact.”
“What fact?”
“Simply, señor, that we now have your six friends in a very safe place.”
Several seconds of surprised silence followed these words.
“Six!” Renny’s big voice rumbled.
“Ham, Patricia, and the squaw—that’s only three!” muttered Johnny. He took off his glasses with the magnifying lens, fingered them thoughtfully.
“Did you say six?” Doc called to the boatman.
“Si, si,” the fellow shouted back.
“He can only mean one thing,” Long Tom said slowly. “I told you that the Ovejas and El Rabanos started shooting at me right after they escaped.”
“You were evidently mistaken,” Doc told him.
“Sure I was!” Long Tom agreed. “It was this other gang shooting at me. They must have grabbed Señor and Señorita Oveja and El Rabanos.”
Renny banged his big fists together. “It beats me!”
“Me, too,” Monk agreed. Bewilderment was on his homely face. “I figured Señor Oveja, his daughter, and El Rabanos were in with the other gang. The ambush they fixed for Doc made me think that.”
“I figured the same way,” said Johnny. “There must have been a contact between the two parties. Otherwise, how did they know of the meeting with Doc?”
“The girl and the two men might have set a snare to capture me,” Doc pointed out. “The other gang, hearing of it, could have tried to turn it into a death trap.”
“That might be, too,” Johnny admitted.
The man in the distant boat had been waiting. His boat had drifted near a large rock which thrust out of the bay; he had wedged the end of a boat hook into a crack in this rock, and was holding his little craft stationary. The rock was a bullet-proof shelter.
“Do you understand me, señor?” the man yelled. “I have your six friends! They are all safe—so far!”
“Ham, Patricia, and the squaw!” Doc called. “Who are the other three?”
“El Rabanos, Señor Oveja, and his daughter!” came the reply.
“I told you so!” said Long Tom. “When the three got away from me, they jumped from the fryin’ pan to the fire. That explains why the machine gunners weren’t at the cliff when you arrived. They were watching the Ovejas’ camp, and saw us show up there. Then they skipped.”
“This seems to indicate the señorita is straight, after all,” Monk grunted.
“When she said they were camped behind the cliff, she lied,” Johnny reminded him.
“You want to make a swap?” Doc shouted.
“Si, si, señor!” the man in the canoe called hastily. “We will trade our prisoners for the ivory cube.”
“I told you we haven’t got the ivory cube!” Doc called back.
“You are lying, señor,” called the canoeman. “I will return in two hours. If you do not give me the ivory cube, one of the prisoners will be shot, and the body tossed out where it will drift ashore!”
With that, he started the outboard motor, and the square-stern canoe skipped out to sea. Apparently, he had laid down an ultimatum about which there could be no argument.