1. A blade designated a ‘spear’ point has its edges, both of which are sharpened, coming together in symmetrical convex curves and is generally intended purely as a fighting weapon. Being more utilitarian, a ‘clip’ point is produced by the first few inches of the otherwise unsharpened ‘back’ of the blade joining, and becoming an extension of the main cutting surface in a concave arc. ‘Bowie’ knives traditionally have ‘clip’ points. What happened to James Bowie’s knife after the storming of the Alamo Mission, San Antonio de Bexar, Texas, on March the 6th, 1836, is told in: GET URREA and THE QUEST FOR BOWIE’S BLADE.
2. Details of the career and adventures of Doctor Clark ‘Doc’ Savage, Jr., are recorded in Kenneth Robeson’s series of Doc Savage biographies read DOC SAVAGE, His Apocalyptic Life, by Philip Jose Farmer, q.v. The latter work also explains the family connections between Doc and the Drummond-Claytons. Unfortunately, while able to reproduce the so-called ‘Kavuru’ tablets, the doctor had been unable to isolate and remove the immunity to ageing elements. Therefore, because of this factor the medication could not be issued to the public without increasing the life expectancy to a point where the world would not support the growth of the population.
3. The paternal grandfather of Allison Dawn “Tex” Gunn was Mark Counter, much of whose history is recorded in our Floating Outfit series. One of his great-grandsons, Bradford ‘Brad’ Counter, became a successful deputy sheriff in the Twentieth Century and ‘stars’ in the Rockabye County series. Another, son of Allison, James Allenvale ‘Bunduki’ Gunn, q.v. would be transported to Zillikian accompanied by Dawn Drummond-Clayton and meet Beryl Snowhill: see, SACRIFICE FOR THE QUAGGA GOD.
4. Miss Amelia Penelope Diana Benkinsop, George Medal—Britain’s civilian equivalent of the Victoria Cross—M.A., B.SC. (Oxon), Honorary Member, Holloway Old Girls Association (granted after having shared a cell with a member of a combined Communist and Nazi spy ring, before Russia finally went to war with her former ‘non-belligerent’ in June, 1941, to obtain information which broke it up) belongs to a family with a long established prominence in international criminal circles. However, although they served together in Group Thirteen, Dawn, only daughter of Lady Hazel and Sir Armond John Drummond-Clayton did not possess the family background and qualification to attend Benkinsop’s Academy For The Daughters Of Gentlefolk, which she founded and served as headmistress after World War II. Some of her history is recorded in: BLONDE GENIUS and Part One, ‘Fifteen The Hard Way’ in J. T.’S LADIES.
4a. An earlier Miss Amelia Penelope Diana Benkinsop—by tradition the eldest daughter always bore the same name, regardless of who the father might be—paid a visit to the United States of America during the mid-1870’s, some details of which are described in: BEGUINAGE IS DEAD!: Part Three, ‘Birds of a Feather’, WANTED! BELLE STARR and Part Five, ‘The Butcher’s Fiery End’, J.T.’S LADIES.
5. According to many acknowledged authorities—including master cutler William D. ‘Bo’ Randall of Randall-Made Knives, Orlando, Florida, USA—Sir Armond John Drummond-Clayton is the world’s foremost exponent of fighting with a knife and other edged weapons. His definitive work on the subject, KNIFE FIGHTING THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, like an equally comprehensive treatise by Commander James Bond, seconded from the Royal Navy to the Secret Service, on unarmed combat—its preparation is referred to by his biographer, Ian Fleming, in DOCTOR NO, was published only by Her Majesty’s Stationary Office. Being classified ‘Top Secret’, neither volume is recorded in this Department’s records and the only copies of both worlds are in the possession of Britain’s M.I.5 and the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States.
6. Produced in 1870 by a saddle maker of that town, Frank Meanea, the ‘Cheyenne roll’ rig differed from its competitors by having a leather flange extending across and to the rear of the cantle board. Used during the 1870’s and ’80’s by cowhands in the Northern cattle raising States, it found little favour in Texas and the South-West. Particularly in the Lone Star State, a doubled girthed saddle was considered de rigeuer.
7. The tanat of the Gruziaks is similar to the throwing sticks used by Hopi and related Indian tribes of North America, or the boomerang of the Australian aborigines, but—unlike the latter—is not intended to return to the thrower if it should miss its mark. This does not make it any less lethal, or ineffective as a weapon. The American author, Daniel Mannix, describes in: Chapter Seven, ‘The Boomerang, The Stick That Kills’, of his book, A SPORTING CHANCE—which covers the subject and various other primitive, or unusual, methods of hunting—how he has thrown one a distance of hundred and forty feet and it still retained sufficient momentum to crack the one inch thick branch of a tree. An example of how the Hopi Indians employed their throwing sticks as effective weapons can be found in OLE DEVIL AND THE MULE TRAIN.