TEXT:  QUEST OF QUI
  A Doc Savage Adventure, by Kenneth Robeson
  
  Table of Contents
  QUEST OF QUI..................................................................................................................................................1
  A Doc Savage Adventure, by Kenneth Robeson.....................................................................................1
  Chapter I. THE DRAGON SHIP.............................................................................................................1
  Chapter 2. THE DEVILS OF QUI...........................................................................................................6
  Chapter 3. KILLERS ALL.....................................................................................................................11
  Chapter 4. THE KNIFE THAT THREW ITSELF................................................................................17
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN..............................................................................................22
  Chapter 6. THE SECRET IN THE RIVER...........................................................................................30
  Chapter 7. WIND AND TERROR.........................................................................................................37
  Chapter 8. PHANTOM ENEMY...........................................................................................................44
  Chapter 9. TERROR IN THE NORTH.................................................................................................53
  Chapter 10. THE GOLDEN−HAIRED GIRL.......................................................................................58
  Chapter 11. DEATH FALL...................................................................................................................64
  Chapter 12. A FIND AND A LOSS......................................................................................................67
  Chapter 13. "HE'D MAKE A SWELL VALET!".................................................................................73
  Chapter 14. QUI.....................................................................................................................................78
  Chapter 15. MEN OF QUI.....................................................................................................................81
  Chapter 16. DEATH IN QUI.................................................................................................................86
  Chapter 17. ULTIMATUM...................................................................................................................90
  Chapter 18. THE DOUBLE−CROSSER...............................................................................................94
  Chapter 19. WAR CLOUDS................................................................................................................100
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  QUEST OF QUI
  A Doc Savage Adventure, by Kenneth Robeson
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  http://www.blackmask.com
  Chapter I. THE DRAGON SHIP
  • 
  Chapter 2. THE DEVILS OF QUI
  • 
  Chapter 3. KILLERS ALL
  • 
  Chapter 4. THE KNIFE THAT THREW ITSELF
  • 
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  • 
  Chapter 6. THE SECRET IN THE RIVER
  • 
  Chapter 7. WIND AND TERROR
  • 
  Chapter 8. PHANTOM ENEMY
  • 
  Chapter 9. TERROR IN THE NORTH
  • 
  Chapter 10. THE GOLDEN−HAIRED GIRL
  • 
  Chapter 11. DEATH FALL
  • 
  Chapter 12. A FIND AND A LOSS
  • 
  Chapter 13. "HE'D MAKE A SWELL VALET!"
  • 
  Chapter 14. QUI
  • 
  Chapter 15. MEN OF QUI
  • 
  Chapter 16. DEATH IN QUI
  • 
  Chapter 17. ULTIMATUM
  • 
  Chapter 18. THE DOUBLE−CROSSER
  • 
  Chapter 19. WAR CLOUDS
  • 
  Chapter I. THE DRAGON SHIP
  THERE WAS  no wind, and the authorities later decided this  accounted for what occurred, for had there been
  a wind, many things  would doubtlessly have been different. 
  Had there been a wind, a baffling mystery might never have come to  the notice of the world, and to the
  attention of Doc Savage. A number  of men might have gone on living. And a scheme of consummate horror
  would probably have been executed with success. 
  It was, however, dead calm on the Atlantic Ocean off the outer tip  of Long Island. The calm had persisted
  since dawn, and it was  aggravating weather for sailboats, and at the same time very nice  weather for power
  boats. 
  The Sea Scream was a power boat, all eighty feet of her, mahogany,  teak and brass, and she bowled along at
  almost twenty knots. The Sea  Scream was a yacht, and she had cost somewhat less than a quarter of a  million,
  which made her owner an important man, on the principle that  any one who can pay nearly a quarter of a
  million for a plaything is  important. 
  But neither the Sea Scream nor her wealthy owner nor her guests  were of special importance to the world that
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  day, as far as news was  concerned. Millionaires and their yachts are a dime a dozen, as  concerns news,
  around Long Island Sound. 
  What happened to those on the Sea Scream was important. It was also  amazing, so much so that citizens in
  London, Paris, and elsewhere read  about it in their newspapers that afternoon. 
  The Sea Scream was barely out of sight of land when the sailor at  the wheel shaded his eyes, squinted, then
  picked up a pair of  binoculars and focused them. 
  "Something dead ahead, sir," he called. 
  The Sea Scream lunged on, bows knocking up spray. Owner, guests and  crew glanced idly ahead, not nearly
  so interested as they were going to  be soon. 
  The helmsman used the binoculars again, staring very hard this  time, after which a blankness came on his
  face. 
  "I hope to swab a deck!" he grunted. "Captain, sir. Have a look." 
  The snappily uniformed captain took the binoculars and stared  through them. 
  "Bless me!" he said, and hastily went to the owner. 
  "Want to have a glance at an unusual vessel?" he asked, and  presented the glasses. 
  The owner looked. So did the guests, one a lady. They murmured,  interested. 
  "Strange−looking thing," said the owner. 
  "Never saw one like it," offered a guest. 
  "I have," said the lady. "A picture, I mean. In my history books,  when I was a girl." 
  More to be polite than anything else, for his job depended on that  to an extent, the skipper asked, "What
  would you call the craft, miss?" 
  "A Viking dragon ship," replied the woman. 
  THE MEN laughed, for the idea was, of course, a little  preposterous, Viking dragon ships having gone out of
  style shortly  after the days of Eric the Red and other noted Norsemen. 
  But the woman was correct. The Sea Scream swept up to the strange  craft. 
  Double−ended, perhaps sixty feet long, the vessel had some of the  aspects of a giant, fat canoe. Bow and
  stern reared up to support  platforms, and amidships was deck planking, while along the rail, on  the outside
  were fastened round things of rusty steel, objects which  certainly resembled shields such as were carried by
  ancient warriors.  There was a mast, and a sail draped around it, unfilled because there  was no wind. The sail
  seemed to be made of animal skins from which the  hair had been removed. 
  There was not a soul in sight on the decks of the weird craft. One  of the yacht guests had an idea. 
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  "Bet it broke away from some water carnival," he laughed. 
  "Let's go aboard," suggested the lady. 
  "Of course," agreed the owner. "It should be interesting." 
  Interesting! So it was to be. 
  The Sea Scream captain shouted orders, and the yacht slowed her  engines and nosed up alongside the Viking
  dragon ship, the sea being so  calm that there was no necessity for going aboard in the tender. 
  Surprising aspects of the Viking craft became evident on closer  inspection. For one thing, the vessel appeared
  very old, and it could  be seen that the hull had been put together with thongs of hide Some of  the hide seemed
  new, as did the sail, but the shields along the rail  were amazingly rusted. 
  The Viking ship had a smell, too, a very strong one. It was not a  smell of death, hut rather that distinctive
  aroma that arises where men  live for a long time with no bathing facilities available. 
  "Take a line aboard," the Sea Scream captain ordered a sailor. 
  The sailor sprang aboard the dragon ship with the line, which he  made fast around the mast. Then things
  happened. 
  The sailor thrust both arms high over his head and screamed most  horribly, after which his head slued
  forward, hanging with a hideous  slackness, and he fell to the deck. 
  Sticking in the man's back was a spear which had a thongwrapped  haft no more than three feet long. 
  FANTASTIC FIGURES swarmed out of the dragon ship hold. They were  men, but what men. They wore
  helmets of burnished steel, each helmet  adorned with a fearsome pair of horns. The faces under the helmets
  might have been bearded visages of the very Norse freebooters of a day  ten centuries past. 
  "Vikings!" the lady on the yacht gasped. 
  The whiskered horde on the dragon ship now boarded the Sea Scream.  There was not a firearm among them,
  but they gripped spears and swords  which were sharp, and which they showed no scruples about using. 
  The yacht captain tried to run to his cabin, where he had a gun,  but a spear, ponderously cast, impaled one of
  his legs and he upset on  the deck and lay there making faces. 
  The bearded raiders from the Viking ship began to bawl hoarsely.  Not a word they said was understood by
  those on the yacht. But there  were accompanying gestures which conveyed full meaning. The yachtsmen
  were being ordered to change ships. 
  There was some more fighting first, after which the yachtsmen,  whipped, obeyed. They were ordered into a
  stuffy forward hold and the  hatch slammed down on them. 
  The yachtsmen now heard sounds which were later the source of much  newspaper conjecture − they heard
  some kind of a cargo being moved from  one craft to the other. They never were able to decide what the cargo
  was, but some of them voiced the impression that it was something  alive. 
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  When the yachtsmen were finally released, it was because the  bearded freebooters could not get the yacht Sea
  Scream going. The  whiskered ones made faces and bawled, and finally collared the engineer  of the yacht − he
  wore greasy coveralls which indicated his profession  − and hauled him onto the yacht. The frightened
  engineer put the  engines in full speed ahead, and the yacht pulled away, leaving the  former occupants on the
  dragon ship. 
  The bearded pirates now threw the engineer overboard, and he swam  to the dragon ship. 
  The Sea Scream made several wild circles, while the hairy thieves  danced and howled on deck, and
  apparently experimented with the modern  steering apparatus. 
  It was during this that the golden−haired girl was glimpsed. 
  DESCRIPTIONS OF the fair companion of the bearded freebooters, as  later given, varied greatly. The lady
  off the yacht declared she was a  she−tigress with the devil written all over her, and as homely as sin.  But
  most of the men turned in a favorable report on her charms. in  fact, they agreed generally that she was very
  personable, entirely too  sweet a thing for such company as she was keeping. 
  The engineer, who had been taken aboard to start the yacht, made a  startling revelation. He had seen the girl
  at close range. She was a  knock−out. 
  Furthermore, the young woman was an unwilling guest of the  whiskered men. They were leading her about
  by a long thong tied to one  of her ankles. 
  At any rate, the Sea Scream was soon lost to sight of her  frightened owner, who with his guests had been left
  aboard the dragon  ship. The yacht, all noted, was headed toward New York City. 
  About noon, a breeze came up. The yachtsmen sailed the dragon ship  into a harbor near the tip of Long
  Island, finding in doing so that the  ship was extremely seaworthy. 
  The yachting victims of this twentieth century Viking raid promptly  found themselves, once they convinced
  their listeners they were not  crazy or lying, objects of feverish interest, both to the Coast Guard,  and the
  newspapers. A swarm of photographers and reporters arrived. A  news reel cameraman came in a plane. He
  got shots of the dragon ship,  and his plane flew them back to New York, where that very night they  were
  shown in the movie theaters. 
  The news reel shots of the Viking dragon ship got William Harper  Littlejohn interested. William Harper
  Littlejohn was a very erudite  gentleman, but he occasionally attended the cinema for relaxation. 
  Johnny was archaeologist enough to recognize, even in the news reel  shots, the undoubted genuiness of the
  Viking dragon ship. He left the  theater in haste. 
  He called Doc Savage. Doc was out of town. Johnny took a plane, the  next morning, for the harbor where the
  dragon ship lay. 
  THE ARRIVAL of Johnny on the scene created a furor among the  newspapermen, who needed new angles
  for their stories, anyway, since  absolutely no trace had been found of the yacht Sea Scream. The Sea  Scream
  had vanished as completely as if sunken. 
  Appearance of Johnny, to the newspapermen, meant Doc Savage was on  the job, for every one knew Johnny
  was associated with Doc. And Doc  Savage, man of bronze, mental wizard, physical giant extraordinary, was
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  big news, all the more so because Doc shunned publicity most  effectively. 
  Johnny did not even bother to deny that Doc was interested in the  Viking dragon ship. He went ahead and
  examined the craft. He used his  monocle magnifier on the ponderous oars, almost too heavy for one man  to
  lift, and on various hammered copper cooking utensils. He  scrutinized the plank fastenings. He studied the
  stitching which held  the skins composing the sail. Those watching him realized he was very  interested
  indeed. A news reel cameraman took pictures of his every  move. 
  Finally, Johnny secured from his plane several ponderous and rare  volumes on history which he had brought
  along. He poured over these  intently. He seemed to be learning things. 
  The news reel men asked him for a statement. They had asked  numerous times, but on this occasion, Johnny
  consented. 
  "Oracular cognoscence of certain recondite aspects. I will  hypothesize," said Johnny, who never used a small
  word where he could  insert a big one. 
  The news reel man looked stunned by the verbal flow, but hastily  got his camera and voice recorder going. 
  Johnny fingered his monocle and began. 
  "Disquisitional recapitulation of imperspicuous symptomatology  tends to an unequivocal belief," he
  announced. 
  Twenty million movie−goers were destined to choke over those words.  The news reel concern finally had to
  run a summary by a commentator at  the end, translating the erudite Johnny's remarks for the American hoi
  polloi. 
  The gist of it was that Johnny was thoroughly convinced that the  Viking dragon ship was genuine, and that it
  had been built many  centuries ago and repaired more recently. Furthermore, certain  markings, coats of arms,
  in effect, discernible on the craft proved it  had belonged to the fleet of one certain ancient Viking freebooter,
  "Tarnjen," by name. 
  Tarnjen, stated Johnny, had been the bad boy of his day, so bad  indeed that he had been chased out of Viking
  land with a number of  ships and what loot he had amassed, which was probably considerable. A  year or two
  later, Tarnjen had returned with only one ship, a vastly  humiliated soul. His other ships and men had been
  taken by the Qui.  Just who the Qui were, historians did not seem certain. Some history  tomes suggested that
  Qui was a name Tarnjen had given to some savage  tribe on some remote continent. 
  Whoever or whatever Qui was, they had taken most of Tarnjen's men  and ships, all of his loot, and sent him
  back, thoroughly broken. Qui,  then, was a mystery. 
  Such was the gist of Johnny's recital. 
  This was the beginning of the mystery of Qui, a mystery from which  amazing things came. 
  JOHNNY RETURNED to New York, but he was still interested; and since  Doc Savage was still out of town,
  overseeing the construction of a  charity hospital somewhere, and since there was no excitement brewing.
  Johnny had nothing to do but dabble with the mystery of Qui and the  Viking dragon ship and the vanished
  yacht, Sea Scream, which still had  not been found. 
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  The raid of the Vikings was unusual news. It went far and wide.  Reports came in. A liner captain had seen the
  dragon ship off Cape Cod,  he reported. A fisherman claimed he had seen such a vessel in the Nova  Scotia
  fog. 
  Johnny digested those two reports. They intrigued him. It seemed  the dragon ship had come down from the
  north, had met the Sea Scream,  and the freebooters had traded their craft for a more modern one which  did
  not depend on the wind. 
  The upshot of it was that, some days later, Johnny was alone in a  plane flying along the Labrador coast.
  Johnny had many accomplishments  besides big words. Flying was one of them. Doc Savage had taught him,
  and Doc had an amazing faculty of transferring some of his own skill to  those whom he instructed. 
  It was late afternoon. A snow blanket was beneath Johnny's plane.  To the right lay a jagged, rock−fanged
  shore line. This was a  wilderness, primeval, cold, unpopulated. A fishing village, passed  hours ago, had been
  the last sign of human habitation on the bleak  Labrador coast. 
  Johnny peered overside often. He used binoculars. His ship cruised  along a bare five hundred feet above the
  white terrain. 
  An ice floe out at sea held his attention for a time, mainly  because of its ominous aspect, and also because
  there was a school of  seals on its edge. Natural life always interested Johnny. 
  Johnny was not quite sure what he was looking for, so he kept an  eye open for anything of interest. That was
  why he went to investigate  the smoke column. 
  The smoke was actually not a column. It was small, a gray yarn  which whipped in the frigid Arctic gale. But
  it was the only trace of  life the bony archaeologist and geologist had seen in hours. So he  banked his plane
  over in that direction. 
  The fire was in the lee of a cathedral−like spire of stone.  Snowdrifts were all about. The beach was close, a
  necklace of rocks,  ice−crusted, which rimmed the shore line. 
  Johnny was close overhead before he saw the man. 
  The man lay on his back and the snow was red beside him. His arms  made feeble, horrible motions,
  movements that were not a supplication  to the plane above, for the man seemed not to know that the ship was
  moaning over him. 
  The man on the snow was obviously in a bad way. The red patch was  certainly leakage from a wound. No
  dogs, no sleeping roll, could be  seen. 
  Johnny now made one of the biggest mistakes of his life. He landed  his plane. 
  Chapter 2. THE DEVILS OF QUI
  IT WAS a rocky region, but there were stretches free of boulders.  The snow was deep, and obviously covered
  with a hard crust. The wind −  it was a fair breeze − was picking the loose flakes up and carrying  them along
  in small, detached clouds. Johnny looked at the plane  thermometer and saw that it was very close to zero −
  cold for this time  of year, even this far north, since down in New York, it was early  summer. 
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  Johnny landed by the simple expedient of cranking the streamlined  landing gear up.  He absent−mindedly
  cranked it partially down before  he thought and sat the plane down on its belly. The craft was designed  for
  that, but the nose had to be kept up throughout to protect the  propeller. Johnny had not landed on snow for a
  long time, and he  miscalculated the distance the plane would slide, with the result that  he almost, but not
  quite, coasted into a nest of boulders. 
  The minute the plane stopped, the crust on the snow collapsed,  letting the ship sink down to its wings, and
  Johnny got out muttering  big−worded imprecations. He foresaw some trouble in leaving the place. 
  Had he known exactly how much trouble he was going to have, the  knowledge might conceivably have
  turned his hair white. 
  Johnny walked to the wounded man. 
  One peculiarity about the man's face struck Johnny distinctly. It  was a full, crude face equipped with a horse's
  mouth, small bird eyes,  and a nose of no consequence, but that was not what stood out  distinctly. Many men
  have ugly faces. Not so many, however have their  forehead, nose and eye area weather−beaten until the skin
  resembles the  top of an old shoe, while the rest of their cheeks, jowls and neck  remain the pale−blue color of
  skim milk. 
  Johnny absently decided this man had worn a very heavy beard for a  long time, and had only recently shaved
  it off. Then Johnny began his  examination. 
  The man had collapsed, and with good reason, for he had been shot  three times. No, four. Johnny found the
  fourth through the man's foot,  where he had not bled much. The other bullets were in his body, and  they had
  bled plenty of scarlet blood. 
  The bullet victim's parka of fur, bearskin pants and big, pliable  hightop moccasins looked extremely new, and
  Johnny, curious, twisted  back the hood until he could see the collar band. Nothing there. He  looked at the
  parka skirt. No Eskimo squaw had made these garments.  They bore the label of a high−class sporting goods
  house on New York's  Madison Avenue. 
  There was nothing else on the wounded man's person to give the  slightest indication of who he was or what
  had befallen him. 
  Johnny ran back to the plane, saw it had sunken even deeper in the  snow, expressed his opinion of that
  happening with several glossologic  gems, and got a first−aid kit out of it. 
  The bullet victim was talking quite calmly when Johnny skittered  across the snow crust to him. 
  "The secret of Qui is twelve hundred years old, Kettler," he said.  "You got the breaks when you found the
  place the first time, but you'll  never find it again without that goldenhaired girl." 
  IN A rational sounding, measured voice, the man talked to the one  named Kettler, and he looked straight at
  bony Johnny as he talked, as  if he had mistaken Johnny for the person, Kettler. But it was not that.  The man
  was delirious, out of his head. He would talk for a while, then  he would collapse. Johnny knew how it went. 
  "Kettler, I tell you I didn't let her go deliberately," the man  said earnestly. "She banged me on the head with a
  rock. Look, you can  see where she hit me." 
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  He did not point, but Johnny looked, then blinked, for there was a  fearsome bruise on the man's forehead. But
  the wounded man was still  talking. 
  "She ran away," the man said. "I don't know where she went. I think  she went north, back toward Qui. She
  ain't normal, that dame. But what  else can you expect from Qui?" 
  The man stopped and breathed a little deeper than usual, and the  result was a gurgling explosion that shot a
  crimson spray through his  teeth and over the surrounding snow. From the number of blood spots  frozen in the
  snow, that must have happened before. It was more than a  minute before he went on. 
  "Kettler, you can't find Qui again without the golden−haired dame." 
  He had said that before. 
  "I couldn't help her scramming, Kettler," he said. "Don't shoot  me." 
  He said that much too calmly. 
  "Damn you, Kettler," he said. "You've shot me. You left me here to  croak. I hope you never get a smell of
  Qui again." 
  It was like listening to a story from fully conscious lips. But it  was horrible, because of the dead quality of the
  tone. The man was  dying, but dying so slowly that he might go on thus for hours, for days  if he got proper
  treatment. He might not die, even. 
  "You won't find Qui, Kettler," said the man. "Don't like that, do  you? Too bad, ain't it? Qui will go on like it
  is for maybe another  twelve hundred years. Sure it will, when you don't get back to do your  killing. Damn
  your killing, Kettler. I didn't like that part of the  scheme." 
  Then, so suddenly that it surprised Johnny a little, the wounded  man's mumbling became unintelligible. A
  gout of scarlet had worked up  in the fellow's throat, and it bubbled there, making the words  inarticulate. 
  Johnny turned him over, and as one would drain out a drowning man,  cleared the victim's bronchial passages
  so more words could come. 
  "Newspapers full of stuff about that Viking ship," the man said.  "Lot of guessing − nowhere near truth −
  never connect it with Qui." 
  Johnny again tried to clear his throat, but it was no go, for the  internal wounds must have opened. With
  bandages and and opiate, Johnny  went to work. 
  It was cold. He had some trouble keeping snow from blowing into the  wounds while he bandaged them. The
  wind in the rocks sounded like  violins playing far away. 
  Out of the fiddling of the wind in the rocks, the moan of the  airplane motor came so gradually that it was
  quite loud before Johnny  noticed it' 
  IT WAS a low−wing monoplane, fitted with pontoons for landing on  water, and the pontoons in turn
  equipped with ski like runners. The  ship had two engines, fitted with shutter cowls, and their exhausts  must
  be carried through some cabinheating attachment, judging by their  hissing quality. An all metal ship, Johnny
  concluded. 
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  The plane was coming down the wind, and Johnny, staring toward it,  was bothered by snow which the wind
  swept into his eyes. He stepped  backward to get in the lee of a boulder only somewhat smaller than a
  suburban garage, where there was some shelter. It chanced thus that he  saw two grooves in the snow, deep
  grooves, and more than a dozen feet  apart. There was one point where they had not filled with snow,  although
  they must have been made hours ago. Johnny looked at them  closely. 
  "I'll be superamalgamated," he murmured. 
  The grooves had been made by the landing gear of the plane above,  or one amazingly like it. The particular
  marks of the ski runners  attached under the pontoons could be picked out. 
  The other plane moaned overhead. Its color was the aluminum alloy  of its natural metal, and it looked new.
  Men in the cabin − they  numbered several − were all looking down, 
  The men all wore masks. 
  The instant he saw the masks, Johnny sprinted for his own plane. He  had suddenly become in the greatest of
  hurries. He was in a jam. He did  not need the twang of a bullet off a near−by rock − a sound he now  heard −
  to tell him there was trouble. 
  Johnny reached his plane, which had broken through the soft crust.  Its nose was almost against boulders. He
  grabbed the tail and tried to  turn the ship around by main strength. No go. He only broke through the  crust
  and floundered. 
  The aluminum ship had spun away, but now it came streaking back  again, and men were cocked out of its
  windows, using high−powered  rifles. Johnny could see their shoulders jerk as the rifles recoiled.  He heard
  characteristic little patting noises of bullets into the snow  about him. 
  Johnny crawled under the tail of his own ship, burrowing deep into  the snow, got under the cabin, scrambled
  up, and was inside. Bullets  hitting the cabin sounded like firecrackers exploding. The cabin was  encased in a
  membrane of armor alloy which, due to the metallurgical  genius of Doc Savage, was light and proof against
  ordinary missiles. 
  The aluminum plane went over with a gusty whoop, so low that its  air disturbance rocked Johnny's plane a
  little, and sucked up a vortex  of loose snow. Bullets came down like rain. 
  Johnny jacked the self−starters and got his engine going. His  propeller was not only adjustable pitch, but
  could be reversed. He  reversed it, not sure that it would do any good, but not wanting to be  pulled forward
  into the rocks where the prop would club itself to  pieces. 
  The aluminum ship was coming back. Johnny produced a weapon which  resembled an oversized automatic
  pistol, with a big drum of a magazine.  This was a supermachine pistol perfected by Doc Savage, and its chief
  wonder was not its incredible rapidity of fire, but the variety of  bullets which it could discharge. 
  Johnny searched through a case which held ammunition drums, all  neatly designated with numerals. He was
  hunting one which held bullets  charged with a particular chemical that vaporized, even in air as cold  as this,
  and gave off a gas that, when drawn into a carburetor,  rendered the mixture unexplosive. The chemical was
  another of Doc  Savage's gems. 
  Who−o−o−m! The plane jumped a full twenty feet in the air. Its back  broke in the middle. It fell in two parts.
  Smoke and snow made a cloud  all about it. 
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  Johnny was out of the plane. He was not sure how that had happened.  Too much flame, smoke, noise. He was
  in snow up to his neck. Outflung  arms supported him on the crust. The smoke fumes stung his nostrils. 
  "Dynamite!" he mumbled. 
  The other plane boomed off. Wind pulled the smoke away. Parts of  the plane, its contents, were scattered
  about. The other ship stood on  a wingtip, came about in a vertical bank, and started back. 
  Johnny hoisted himself out of the snow. Handfuls of snow jumped up  around him. Bullets! He ran. He saw a
  metal case to the left. It had  spilled out of the ruined plane. He recognized it, whipped to it,  gathered it up
  with both arms, and sprinted. 
  A big rock lured him. Snow was encrusted near it. He went through,  under. But the stones sheltered him.
  Plane, guns, bullets, made a hell  of a noise. Then the plane went on. 
  Johnny burrowed deeper. Snow among the boulders, he discovered,  ranged from six to fifteen feet in depth. It
  was soft, cold enough to  be dry. 
  The metal box which Johnny carried was heavy. He used it to ram  through the snow. That pleased him. He
  could make fair progress. 
  He heard the plane come back, picked out the ratty sounds which  rifle slugs made running around from rock
  to rock in the snow drifts.  Then came a great roar and the earth shimmied, as more dynamite was  dumped out
  of the other plane. 
  Johnny kept going. Conditions were perfect for what he was doing.  He encountered a rock, and worked
  around that. His flying suit was full  of snow. So were his ears, nostrils. He stopped finally and listened. 
  The plane motor had dropped in volume of noise. At first, he  thought it was far away. Then it blasted out. A
  grating and rasping,  quite distinct, came through the snow. The ship had landed. 
  They would have trouble finding him, Johnny decided grimly. Why  were they trying to kill him? Because he
  had found the wounded man,  obviously. But what was behind their action? What were they up to? And  could
  he, Johnny, finally escape? He thought so. But just in case,  there was a precaution he could take. 
  Johnny worked himself from side to side in the snow, and made a  small cave. There was not much light, but
  he did not need much. He  opened the box. Some snow fell in. He brushed it out carefully. 
  The box held a radio outfit which transmitted and received on an  extremely short−wave length. Despite its
  compactness, the apparatus had  a range, under favorable conditions, of a good many hundreds of miles. 
  Johnny turned a switch. A generator, operated by a very sturdy,  light storage battery, made some little noise.
  He fumbled with the  microphone and head−set. 
  He set the dials to the wave length employed by Doc Savage and his  men in their communications. 
  Then he heard about the most unpleasant sound possible under the  circumstances. Dogs barking! The other
  men had landed their plane. They  had unloaded dogs, probably sled dogs. 
  Johnny let out a long word expressive of disgust. The dogs would  smell him out like a partridge under the
  snow. 
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  10
  
  Chapter 3. KILLERS ALL
  NO ONE had ever honestly believed Johnny did not have an agile  mind, and he used it now. He thought
  swiftly. His first conclusion was  that it was just as well if these men seeking his life did not know  about the
  radio transmitter and receiver. They would be certain to  destroy that link with civilization. 
  Johnny, in common with some other scholarly men, was a bit  absent−minded, however. When he left the
  radio set and burrowed away  hurriedly under the snow, he overlooked something he might have done  had he
  thought of it. 
  Johnny forgot to turn the radio transmitter off. 
  Men were shouting. They sounded angry. Dogs were barking, and they  sounded joyful, as if they had been
  cooped up on the plane for some  time. 
  Johnny found himself in snow which was particularly dark, decided  that that meant the drift was deep and he
  was near the bottom, and  concluded to lie still. The dogs at least would not hear him then. He  might even get
  away entirely. 
  After he had stopped, Johnny heard a faint whine which puzzled him.  It was almost two minutes before he
  abruptly remembered he had  forgotten to turn off the radio, and this must be the generator he was  hearing. It
  would run for hours. The generator, delivering high  voltage, drew little current, and the special storage
  battery had a  high ampere−hour capacity. 
  During the next few seconds, Johnny entertained ideas of burrowing  back and turning the radio off, but put
  that out of his mind as being  too risky. They might not hear it, anyway. 
  Johnny grinned once, but not joyfully. It was the kind of a grin  put on by a man who has just been run over
  by a car and is too dazed to  be sure how badly he is hurt, and Johnny employed the grin because he  had
  thought of how unbelievable his present position was. 
  A Viking dragon ship filled with bearded freebooters had captured a  yacht off Long Island, and that was
  somehow connected with a plane load  of men who were now trying to kill Johnny. There was also something
  named Qui, of which no man had known for twelve hundred years. It did  not quite make sense. Johnny had
  encountered some strange, unbelievable  and mysterious things during his association with Doc Savage, but
  this  one, thus far, made less sense than 
  A dog went "wur−r−r−o−o!"  over Johnny's head. Another canine  barked more sharply. They had sniffed him
  out. Johnny wished fervently  that he had taken a bath more recently than the previous Saturday. It  might have
  helped. 
  A copper−nickel slug came clubbing down through the snow, jarred  the frozen ground close to Johnny's
  fingers, and the report of the gun  which had fired it sounded far less muffled than Johnny had expected.  The
  drift must not be as deep as he had thought. 
  Men were crunching up. Johnny had made himself a little cave. The  weight of those above collapsed that.
  Snow got into his eyes, mouth.  Only the most heroic effort kept him from sneezing. 
  "Where's that machine gun?" bawled a voice which reminded Johnny of  the sound one got by pulling a
  resined string through a tight drumhead. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 3. KILLERS ALL
  11
  
  "Comin', Kettler," called some one more distant. 
  Kettler rasped, "Hurry it up He's somewhere under here where the  dogs are sniffin' and barkin'." 
  There was a pause. Feet crunched in the snow. 
  "Here's the gun," said a voice. 
  "Don't set it up on the tripod," directed Kettler. "Three of you  hold the damned thing so the recoil won't
  knock you down. We'll get  this guy under the snow, whoever he is." 
  Johnny reached a hurried decision. 
  "Hold it!" he shouted. "I am coming out." 
  HE HALF expected them to pay no attention, but thanked his stars  when they did, and scrambled, not without
  difficulty, to the surface.  Men grabbed him, yanked him, with the result that they all went through  tile crust
  and there was much cursing and floundering around. 
  Johnny perceived that a large stone upthrust near by east a shadow,  and it was this which had deceived him
  into thinking the snow was deep.  Some one hit him with a fist, and that jarred snow out of his eyes, so  that he
  got a good look at his captors. 
  He abruptly felt as if something colder than snow water were  running down the back of his neck. 
  They were a hard, evil−looking crowd, and in size they averaged  neither unusually large nor particularly
  smal!l, but about what one  might expect from a group assembled, not because of their size, but  because their
  brains had the same twist, if it is a brain twist that  makes a criminal. 
  One thing Johnny did note that all had in common. Their foreheads,  noses and central cheek area was
  weather−beaten until it brought  thoughts of the back of a toad. The rest of their visages, where a  beard would
  have protected the skin, were quite pale. All of them, like  the wounded man Johnny had found, had recently
  cut off heavy beards. 
  "Let 'im have it!" ordered Kettler. 
  Kettler was the tallest man in the crowd, and he had a doglike  face. He was wearing a muskrat cap with
  earfiaps that hung down and  gave him a hound aspect. He bent forward, too, giving the impression  that he
  might be more at home on all fours. 
  A man lifted a rifle, he looked closely at Johnny over its sights. 
  "Unconscionable intempestivity!" Johnny said hastily. 
  The man with the rifle all but dropped the weapon. 
  "Oh, hell!" he choked. "Oh, hell!" 
  Kettler put out his doglike jaw and said, "Go ahead! Pop 'im off." 
  A man began, "Maybe we better − " 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 3. KILLERS ALL
  12
  
  "Better what?" 
  "Better find another way." 
  "What other way is there?" Kettler rasped. "He talked to that fool  we shot, didn't he? And the fool was talking
  his head off, wasn't he?  This guy is sure to have heard plenty, wasn't he? Now ask me, what can  we do but
  butter him up and put him away?" 
  "Aw, 0. K.," said the voice. 
  "Whew!" gulped the man with the gun. "Whew!" 
  "What's eating you?" gritted Kettler. 
  "This guy − " The rifleman jabbed his gun muzzle at Johnny. "This  pile of bones − " 
  "An uncomplaisant appellative," snapped Johnny. 
  "That's it!" exploded the rifleman. "That's what I remembered. I  mean, I thought there was something familiar
  about this pile of bones,  on account of me having seen his picture somewhere. Then he sprung that  word, that
  jawbreaker, and I remembered." 
  "Remembered what?" yelled Kettler. 
  "This guy is William Harper Littlejohn," said the other. 
  That apparently meant nothing to Kettler. 
  "And who," he queried, "might William Harper Littlejohn be?" 
  "One of Doc Savage's five right−hand men," announced the other.  "Glory be! And I almost shot him!" 
  JOHNNY, WHO really had no slightest idea of capitalizing on the  suggestion, ventured, "Now, perhaps you
  will turn me loose." 
  "Sure!" grated Kettler. "I'll turn you loose from this earth!" 
  He hooked a bony hand down inside the waistband of his trousers,  got a revolver, pointed it at Johnny's
  stomach. 
  Johnny shifted an eye at the machine gun. He was wearing a  bulletproof vest which would protect him
  momentarily, and there was a  bare chance that he might reach the rapid−firer. It was one of the big,  heavy,
  old−fashioned type developed and manufactured during the Great  War. 
  "Wait!" a man exploded. 
  "And why should I?" Kettler rasped. 
  More than ever, Kettler's voice reminded Johnny of a resined cord  on a drumhead. He seemed to recall that in
  radio sound effects men used  such a device to imitate roaring lions and such. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 3. KILLERS ALL
  13
  
  "This guy!" The objector jerked a frantic thumb at Johnny. "This  guy − how'd he get up here? How'd he find
  the guy we bumped for letting  that yellow−haired dame blow? I think we might ask the guy some  questions." 
  Kettler mulled that over. He uncocked his revolver. 
  "Yeah," he said. "I've heard of this Doc Savage. If he's on the  job, it might help if we knew about it." 
  "Help!" exploded a man in the background. "When Doc Savage comes  in, I go out!" 
  "None of that damned talk," Kettler growled. He stared at Johnny  with small eyes. "How much does Doc
  Savage know?" 
  "Doc Savage's knowledge is indeterminable, magnitudinous," said  Johnny. 
  Kettler shot his jaw out. "You mean he knows about the whole caper?  How'd he get wise?" 
  "That guy's kiddin' you, Kettler," advised some one who knew the  meaning of the words Johnny had used. 
  Kettler instantly knocked Johnny down. The man could move with  shocking speed. Johnny could recall but
  few times when he had been hit  so suddenly and with such blinding force. 
  Johnny buried head and shoulders in the snow when he fell, and  lying there, was conscious of a whining in
  his ears. He thought it was  aftermath of the blow, then remembered the radio transmitter he had  abandoned. 
  He got up hastily and staggered away from the spot until they  cornered him. 
  "Look!" said a man, and pointed. 
  Twenty−five yards away, the man who had been shot, the fellow whose  presence had drawn Johnny to a
  landing, was sitting up. He was talking  loudly and coherently to no one. 
  "That bird is tough!" some one muttered. 
  Kettler, saying nothing, took a deliberate aim with his revolver.  The gun let out noise, fire, and jumped. A
  hole, round and blue,  appeared in the wounded man's forehead and started leaking red. The  victim fell back,
  silent, unmoving. 
  "He ain't tough enough to stand that, I betcha," said Kettler. 
  Johnny nearly shuddered himself off his feet. It was the coldest  kind of a murder. 
  KETTLER EMITTED a stream of profanity. He sprang to Johnny, jabbed  him in the stomach with the
  murder gun. 
  "What's Doc Savage know about this?" he gritted. 
  Breath steam − it stood out very distinctly in the cold air − ran a  long plume out of Johnny's mouth, and then
  there was no more breath  steam for so long a time that it seemed certain he must collapse from  want of
  breathing. 
  "Out with it!" Kettler roared. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 3. KILLERS ALL
  14
  
  "Doc Savage − don't  know − anything," Johnny said, his words  small, halting. 
  It was the truth. Kettler did not believe it. 
  "Don't lie to me!" he yelled. "Has Savage figured out about them  Vikings in that dragon ship?" 
  "Figured what out about them?" Johnny queried. 
  "Figured what they were − " 
  "Ps−s−t, Kettler!" a man hissed. "He's pumping you!" 
  "Uhm!" Kettler scowled and shifted his gun from Johnny's stomach to  his mouth, with the result that the
  gaunt geologist's moist, tender  mouth tissues clung to the gun steel most agonizingly, and tore when  Kettler
  yanked the weapon. 
  "Hah!" Kettler leered. "Does Doc Savage know about Qui?" 
  Johnny spat crimson, said nothing. 
  "Damn, I'm gonna shoot him!" Kettler proclaimed. 
  "Wait a minute," grunted a man. "I ain't so anxious to stir this  Doc Savage up. We'd be prize suckers to get
  him on our necks by  croakin' this bony guy." 
  "We may have already gotten him on our necks," grunted Kettler m  reply. "How we gonna know? This mug
  won't talk. I know mugs who won't  talk when I see one." 
  "Listen," said the other. 
  They drew aside, where Johnny could not hear their "Ps−s−s−t"  of  whispering, then both departed, shuffling
  carefully over the snow  crust. Those behind guarded Johnny with careless efficiency. When he  tried to talk,
  they kicked him and used their fists. He fell silent. He  heard distant chopping noises. 
  Some fifteen minutes later a shout came from Kettler, and Johnny  was hauled over the snow crust. 
  Kettler stood beside a stream. This was frozen over, but there was  running water under the ice. It could be
  heard. The ice had cracked  during the intense cold of winter, and pressure had shoved it up at the  edges,
  causing a number of larger cracks. Johnny was hauled over the  rugged ice to the middle of the stream. 
  The ice was thick, and they had chopped a trench in it, seven feet  long, three wide, and almost three deep. 
  Johnny was now bound hand and foot. Wrists and ankles were lashed  together so that he could not stand
  erect. He was thrown into the  bottom of the trench. Chunks of chopped ice which had not been scooped  out
  gouged his bony frame. 
  Some one brought a heavy rock, which had been pried from its frozen  bed with difficulty. The rock was so
  heavy that they rolled it into the  pit instead of lifting it and lowering it. It knocked air out of  Johnny's lungs
  with such violence that almost a minute elapsed before  he could start breathing again. 
  "What's − idea?" he managed to gulp. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 3. KILLERS ALL
  15
  
  "You're gonna tell us where Doc Savage hooks into this," he was  informed. 
  Johnny only glared. 
  HE COULD hear them chopping the ice near by.  Their axes, no doubt,  had been brought from their plane.
  The chopping sounded hurried.  The  men appeared to be no great lovers of physical labor, because there was
  plenty of grumbling. 
  Dogs − they were big sled huskies − bounded about, barked and  chased rabbits.  Wind whined in the cold
  stunted trees along the creek  bank. Listening to it, Johhny thought of the distant violins again.  The sound
  struck him as funeral music. Snow sifted in on him. It was  covering him like a shroud. A funeral shroud.  He
  shivered. 
  "What are you doing with me?" he yelled, a little uneasily,  unsteadily. 
  A man leered down at him. "The guy is forgettin' his big words." 
  Kettler came and looked down. The man had a face like a devil,  Johnny thought, a canine sort of a devil. It
  was altogether the most  unlovely face the lank geologist and archaeologist could recall. 
  Johnny glared up, at the devil−like face. The glaring was a measure  to preserve his own control. A man does
  not get scared so badly if he  can keep his mind on doing something else. 
  "Gonna spill it?" asked Kettler. 
  Johnny said, "No!" 
  Men appeared. They carried folding canvas buckets, no doubt also  gotten from their plane. Water was in the
  buckets. They must have  dipped it up from a hole they had chopped through the ice. 
  "Pour it in," directed Kettler. 
  'The water splashed down the sides of the ice pit. It seemed warm  at first, but that was some misinterpretation
  by Johnny's nerves. It  became cold. It bit through his garments, soaked him. It mixed with the  snow and
  became a slush that began to freeze instantly. 
  Johnny floundered about. The rock on his chest did not allow much  of that, and what motion he did manage
  did not help much. His legs  began to feel pleasantly warm. That seared him. Horror frosted his  brain. That
  warmth − he was freezing. 
  "What do you want to know?" he gasped hastily. 
  Kettler leered down in the pit. 
  "Not a damn thing," he rasped. "I've decided we'll just put you in  the ice here. Hell with what you know.
  Maybe they'll find you next  spring, maybe not." 
  Johnny writhed, knowing it would not help. Blood rammed at his  eardrums. He could hear a singing. It was
  his own horror, of course,  but it made him think of the radio transmitter that he had left  switched on. The
  transmitter was strong enough to reach Doc Savage's  New York headquarters. If there had just been time to
  use it − 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 3. KILLERS ALL
  16
  
  "More water!" Kettler called harshly. "Let's get this guy out of  the way and get at the job of finding that
  golden−haired dame." 
  Johnny's head throbbed. The radio − the radio − 
  Chapter 4. THE KNIFE THAT THREW ITSELF
  THE RADIO is undoubtedly a remarkable invention, with many  possibilities. And probably no one
  individual knew more about radio, or  employed it more assiduously, than did Doc Savage, man of miracles,
  mystery and adventure. 
  Doc Savage stood beside the complex radio equipment in his New York  headquarters and listened to a steady
  hissing note which came from a  loud−speaker. 
  "This is strange," he said. His voice was a remarkable one −  controlled, a voice that had undergone much
  training. 
  Unusual as it was, the voice was hardly as remarkable as the man.  Doc Savage was a giant. One did not
  realize that until comparison with  ordinary objects, for his muscles were evenly developed; he did not  have
  the knotted shoulders of a wrestler or the overdeveloped legs of a  runner. Rather, his whole great frame was
  swathed in sinews that were  remindful of bundled wires. 
  More striking was the bronze of his skin, a hue which might have  come from many tropical suns, and the
  slightly darker bronze of his  straight, tight−lying hair. His eyes were a little weird, being like  pools of fine
  gold flakes being always stirred by tiny, invisible  gales. 
  The loud−speaker hissed steadily. 
  "Renny!" Doc called. 
  There were windows on three sides of the laboratory which held the  radio equipment, windows which looked
  down from a height of eighty−six  stories up in central New York City. At one end was a door, which  opened,
  revealing a library, a room with floor space taken up by  bookcases. 
  The door was high, but the man who came through ducked a little so  that its top would clear his head. He was
  broad, too, with arms that  were beams. Yet somehow he looked lean, gaunt, hungry. Maybe it was his  hands
  that made him look that way. They were fantastic hinds Huge. He  could hardly have put either of them in a
  gallon pail. 
  "Yes," he said, and his voice somehow brought thoughts of a lion  which had jumped out of its cave and
  roared. 
  "Listen to that, Renny," Doc Savage said, and indicated the hissing  radio. 
  "Renny" came forward. He was Colonel John Renwick, M. S., C. E., D.  S. C., C. M. H., and a lot of other
  things. He was a civil engineer  noted over most of the world for his abilityand those fists. 
  He cocked an ear to the hissing from the radio. He walked over and  eyed the dials, noting their setting. It was
  obvious that he was quite  familiar with the apparatus. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 4. THE KNIFE THAT THREW ITSELF
  17
  
  "A transmitter sending on our wave length − the wave length we use  for intercommunication," he said.
  "Sounds weak. Must be some amateur  with a little transmitter." 
  "This station is hundreds of mites distant," Doc Savage said. 
  "Sure?" 
  "Fairly. You can tell, after you have played with radio for a long  time. This is one of our sets, the one Johnny
  had." 
  "You can tell that, too?" Renny rumbled. 
  "The particular quality of the carrier wave," Doc imparted. "There  is hardly another transmitter that would
  emit the specific type of wave  associated with our newly developed short−wave V. U. X. type tube." 
  Renny used an enormous forefinger to scratch his head. "But what  would Johnny be keeping that transmitter
  turned on for. Running down  his battery, isn't it?" 
  "Look here," Doc Savage said. 
  He pressed a button, which lighted a ground−glass compass rose,  over which was mounted a pointer actuated
  by a loop aerial through  remote control. The loop was situated on the skyscraper roof for better  functioning. 
  Doc Savage moved the loop in the regulation radio compass manner,  not getting the signals to their loudest,
  but to their weakest point,  which was more easily detected. 
  Renny read the compass indicator. 
  "North by east, a quarter east," he said. "Holy cow! He's somewhere  on a line drawn approximately between
  here and Greenland, or maybe on  the same line if extended south through New York City." 
  "Exactly," Doc said. "It is very strange, this continuous operation  of Johnny's transmitter." 
  RENNY EXTRACTED a newspaper from a coat pocket which looked as if  it had been especially tailored
  with sufficient capacity to hold his  enormous fists. He tapped the headlines. 
  "That business of the Viking pirates who took over that yacht is  getting a big play," he said. "There is a story
  in here to the effect  that Johnny examined the Viking dragon ship and declared it to be  genuine and some
  hundreds of years old. Funny, eh?" 
  "Unusual, to say the least," Doc Savage agreed. 
  "And Johnny is supposed to have chased off somewhere investigating  the mystery," Renny boomed. 
  Doc Savage was still in front of the radio. There now came into  being a sound so soft and eerie that its
  presence was at first  unnoticeable. It was a trilling, low, indescribably mellow, a sound so  fantastic that it
  defied description. The fantastic note seemed to  filter from everywhere; it was as if the very air were
  saturated with  it. 
  The trilling was the sound of Doc Savage, a small, unconscious  thing which he did in moments of mental
  stress. He did not do it  willfully. He had made it always, since he could remember. And now he  seemed to
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 4. THE KNIFE THAT THREW ITSELF
  18
  
  realize what he was doing, and the unearthly note ebbed away. 
  Renny eyed the bronze man sharply. That sound always meant  something was up. 
  "Strange, that business of the radio transmitter going steady," he  said, echoing Doc's earlier statement. "It's
  got some queer angles." 
  Queer angles, it did have. They found out just how queer an instant  later. 
  Something that glinted whipped through the air. Renny had a flash  realization of what it was. A knife! It
  flashed directly for Doc  Savage's back. 
  The knife struck Doc in the back, point−first, and with ugly force. 
  An alarm clock began ringing deliriously. 
  RENNY REACTED with the abruptness of a man who had been in danger  before. He slammed down and to
  one side, getting behind a case which  held storage batteries. 
  The steadily ringing alarm clock seemed very loud. 
  Doc Savage had taken a headlong dive and was lying behind the  battery case also. The bronze man's back
  was to Renny. 
  Doc's coat was ripped, displaying the fine chain mail undergarment  which Doc habitually wore. The knife
  still stuck in the cloth of the  bronze man's coat. 
  Renny pulled the knife out and looked at it briefly. Short as his  inspection was, he noted that the knife was
  extremely unusual. 
  Doc Savage had dug a thin tube, as long as a pencil and not much  larger than a match, from his clothing
  somewhere, and he elongated this  somewhat, then projected the tip over the battery case. It was a tiny
  periscope. 
  The alarm clock jangled steadily. 
  "Watch it, Doc!" Renny croaked in sudden apprehension. Doc Savage  had stood erect. He was staring
  steadily. There was, for the bronze  man, an unusual tenseness about his posture. It was rarely that he  showed
  excitement. 
  "Look out!" Renny boomed. "Whoever threw that knife may have a  gun!" 
  "There is no one," Doc Savage said. 
  Their voices sounded eerie over the frantic clangor of the clock. 
  Renny heaved erect. His eyes roved, as did the machine− gun pistol,  which looked small in his enormous fist.
  He had dropped the strange  knife on the floor. He walked forward, searching. 
  "Holy cow!" he rumbled. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 4. THE KNIFE THAT THREW ITSELF
  19
  
  There was no one but themselves. The windows were all closed,  because it was windy, a trifle chilly this far
  up. The windows were  hardly ever opened anyway, for air conditioning kept the laboratory at  an even
  temperature that was necessary in some chemical experiments. 
  There was one door. This was almost at their elbow. No one could  have passed through it without being seen. 
  The thrown knife had come from the other end of the room. There  were no doors down there. It  was a
  "cul−de−sac." 
  Doc Savage was moving about, searching, flake gold eyes roving  intently. Renny trailed him. They opened a
  few cabinets which were  large enough to hold a man. These were few in number, since most of the  cabinets
  had transparent glass doors. There was no man in them. 
  The alarm clock stopped ringing. Doc Savage picked it up with the  end of a long pole that had a grabber hook
  on the end of it and which  was ordinarily used for taking bottles off the high chemical shelves. 
  The bronze man put the clock under an X−ray and examined the  fluroscopic screen. It was not an infernal
  machine. 
  "Ever see that clock before?" Renny asked. 
  "No," Doc told him. 
  "Any finger prints?" 
  Doc used a vapor method of his own in searching the cheap tin alarm  clock for prints. He held it in a
  chemical vapor which would mingle  with the microscopic, oily deposit left by the human hand and cause a
  color change, together with a thickening of the oily deposit due to  precipitation. The method would bring out
  the most infinitesimal print. 
  "No finger prints," he said. 
  Renny knotted his big fists and knocked them together. Their hard  bone and gristle made sounds reminiscent
  of bricks colliding. It was a  small habit he had. 
  "Holy cow!" he growled. "If you ask me, it couldn't have happened!" 
  DOC SAVAGE  said, "There was apparently no one in the room. Yet the  knife was thrown." 
  "You got secret trapdoors and things in this place," Renny  reminded. "Maybe the guy got in and got away
  through them." 
  Doc Savage moved about the room. He touched innocent−looking bits  of wall, floor and cases, and in the
  most unexpected places, tiny lids  flew up to expose dials. It became evident that his skyscraper aerie  was one
  incredible maze of mechanical devices. He came back and stood  by the radio. 
  The hissing note still came from the radio receiver. 
  "All of the concealed doors have indicators on them which show when  they have been used, and the
  indicators cannot be put out of commission  without evidence of it showing," Doc said. "They show that none
  of the  secret entrances or exits have been used." 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 4. THE KNIFE THAT THREW ITSELF
  20
  
  "But why the alarm clock?" Renny scratched his head. "Say, that  knife maybe − " 
  Doc Savage picked the knife up, turned it in his hands. He abruptly  put it under a magnifying glass. 
  "Unusual thing, eh?" Renny commented. 
  Doc Savage lifted a glance. "Have you guessed just how unusual,  Renny?" 
  "I can build a bridge or a skyscraper," Renny said. "I don't know a  heck of a lot about knives. The one you've
  got in your hand looks as if  some amateur had hammered it out of a piece of iron. As a knife, it  don't look so
  hot." 
  "The knife is probably more than a thousand years old, Renny." 
  Renny showed interest. He knew this was one of the things on which  Doc was an authority. 
  "Yeah," he said. 
  "It is a genuine old Viking knife," Doc said. "A collector of such  things might be willing to pay five hundred
  dollars for it." 
  "A Viking knife," Renny said. "Holy cow!" 
  The telephone buzzer whined. 
  DOC SAVAGE went over and picked up one of several telephones, each  of which was connected, instead of
  a bell, to a buzzer which had a  distinctive note. 
  "Yes," he said. 
  The voice which began talking to him was Monk's. 
  "What goes on, if anything?" Monk asked. 
  "An alarm clock just rang in my laboratory," Doc told him. "About  the same time, a knife struck my back
  with force enough to make the  discomfort of wearing a bulletproof jacket all the time seem a good
  investment." 
  Monk was silent a moment. He must have been digesting that and  trying to make something out of it. Then he
  asked, "Who threw the  knife?" 
  "No one, so far as we can find." 
  "Then what kind of a gadget done it?" 
  "No gadget, that we have seen," Doc told him. "The alarm clock did  not, obviously." 
  "Alarm clock − " Monk made a mumbling noise. "Say, what is this?" 
  "A mystery," Doc replied. "It seems to have to do with ancient  Vikings and − " 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 4. THE KNIFE THAT THREW ITSELF
  21
  
  "Ow−w−w!" Monk bawled. 
  Monk's roar out of the receiver was ear−splitting. It made Renny,  standing across the laboratory, jump. 
  Silence followed. Utter silence. Either Monk's receiver had been  hung up, or the telephone had been torn
  from its cord socket. 
  "Something's happened!" big Renny barked, charging across the  laboratory. "Monk don't squall like that
  without reasons!" 
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  MONK, like most extremely homely men, was ordinarily a peaceful,  quiet, small−voiced soul. The only time
  he was noisy was in a fight.  Then he was a bedlam, all by himself. 
  Monk was putting on one of his best bedlams now. He howled and  roared and floundered about. Although
  there was daylight outside, the  room wherein Monk was having his troubles was in the blackest darkness.
  This was because special shutters on the windows were closed. Monk had  been engaged in an experiment
  with chemicals sensitive to light. 
  There had been a red light burning. That had gone out very  mysteriously. Something had fastened itself
  around Monk's feet  unexpectedly. in his excitement, he had tried to Jump, howling at the  same time, and had
  gone down. Absent−mindedly keeping a clutch on the  telephone, he had torn it loose from its wires. 
  "Ye−o−o−w!" Monk roared. "Leggo me!" 
  He struck savagely with the telephone, hit nothing, and suddenly  discovered the thing around his ankles was a
  cord. It was hard, stiff,  slick. A thong of some kind of hide. 
  Monk suddenly stopped making a noise and tried to change his  Position. The thing around his ankles
  hampered him. He got around that  by the − for him − simple expedient of rearing up and walking on his
  hands. He settled down behind a steel desk and listened intently 
  An alarm clock started ringing. 
  The thing sounded louder than any alarm clock Monk had ever heard.  Probably surprise had something to do
  with that. He tried to listen  harder. His ears could not penetrate the din. 
  He did not move. He was thinking of what he had just been told over  the telephone − the alarm clock which
  had accompanied the attempt on  Doc Savage's life. 
  Trying to make no noise, Monk worked at the thong Securing his  ankles. The knot was the kind that supped
  only one way. It would not  loosen. Monk got out his pocketknife. 
  Fists were beating rapidly on the dark room door. 
  "Monk!" cried the one who was doing the belaboring. "Mr. Mayfair!  What has happened?" 
  It was Monk's secretary. Obviously, she had found the door locked.  That surprised Monk no end. He had not
  locked it. The thong defied his  pocketknife blade. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  22
  
  Zun−n−n−g! The sound came from the spot Monk had left. He knew  something had hit the wall near the
  telephone stand, hit it very hard.  The sound was loud over the alarm clock bell. 
  Monk felt under his left arm, then grimaced. The holster was there,  but the machine−gun pistol was not.
  Monk was a careless soul, and he  had lain the gun aside while he worked. 
  Moments dragged. The alarm clock rang on. Monk began to wonder if  it would ever run down. The secretary
  was still attacking the door. It  sounded as if she had gotten the fire axe out of the penthouse  vestibule. 
  Monk got up on his hands again, walked himself toward where he had  lain his gun. He got it, one of the
  machine pistols which Doc Savage  had perfected. He held it by the trigger guard with his teeth, and
  hind−walked to a light switch. He set himself. Then he turned the  switch on, bringing a blaze of white light
  which hopelessly ruined the  chemical project under way at the moment. 
  Monk's hair all but stood on end. 
  It was not what he saw. It was what he did not see. There was  apparently no one but himself in the dark room. 
  AT LEAST half a dozen times, Monk ran an intent scrutiny over the  dark room. There were many stands of
  apparatus, cases, metal boxes,  jugs and a few packing boxes. None of these were of sufficient size to  harbor a
  man. 
  Devoting one eye to the job, Monk discovered he had been using the  dull blade in his pocketknife to saw at
  the thong. He opened a sharp  blade, and finally sawed through it. He laid the thong aside for future
  examination. It was the toughest piece of leather he had ever seen. 
  Monk made a complete circle of the room. He saw no attacker. He  went over and gaped at the thing sticking
  in the wall beside the  telephone stand. 
  It was a bobtailed spear, a thing with a heavy, razor−sharp head,  and a shaft less than three feet long, very
  heavy. A tassel of flexible  thongs on the end of the shaft evidently served the same purpose as  feathers on the
  extremity of an Indian's arrow. 
  Monk left it sticking, and went to the alarm clock. It ran down  just as he reached it. The thing was cheap, the
  type sold by most drug  stores for less than a dollar. 
  A volley of loud blows on the door reminded Monk that his secretary  was still trying to get in. He went over. 
  The key had been turned in the lock. He was positive of that. He  turned the key back and opened the door. 
  The secretary who came in was as near being the prettiest secretary  in New York as Monk had been able to
  achieve after interviewing some  hundreds of applicants. She was excited, but that only made her  prettier. 
  It was obvious that she had not the least idea of what had  happened, so Monk told her. 
  "Now, what do you make of it?" he finished. 
  "No one came in or left, I'm positive," said the young woman, who  had brains as well as beauty. 
  Monk took another tour of inspection around the dark room, which  was a part of the penthouse chemical
  laboratory which he maintained  down here a stone's throw from Wall Street. Monk was by way of being  one
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  23
  
  of the nation's leading chemists. He came back and eyed his  secretary foolishly. 
  "Do I look all right?" he demanded. 
  "No worse than usual," the young woman replied. "Why?" 
  "I thought maybe I had an attack of the jimjams and imagined what  happened," Monk said. 
  "Don't be silly." 
  Monk suddenly handed the young woman his machine−gun pistol. 
  "Guard the door with that," he commanded. "I'm gonna go get Habeas  Corpus." 
  "That hog?" 
  "Sure," said Monk. "He's part bloodhound, that hog is." 
  Monk walked rapidly along a corridor which had cost a great deal to  decorate. After a single look at Monk,
  one knew where he got his  nickname. He would not have to be met in a very dark alley to be  mistaken for an
  overgrown ape. His face was composed mostly of mouth.  His nose had been pounded almost entirely back
  into his face in the  past, and he had small eyes, practically no forehead. Strangely enough,  people who met
  him for the first time usually smiled at him. 
  Monk opened a mahogany door and entered a room which was no doubt  the most expensive pigpen in the
  world. The floor was marble covered  with mats, and there was a trough of chromium, and various chromium
  self−feeders holding viands dear to the porker family. There was a  stack of clean straw at one end. In the
  middle was a wallowing box  perhaps ten feet square. The mud in this wallow was perfumed. 
  Out of the mud stuck two ears of enormous size. "Habeas!" Monk  called.  The ears twitched. 
  "Get outta there or I'll kick your ribs in!" Monk yelled. 
  The big ears arose. Judging from their size, the hog in the mud  should have been only slightly smaller than a
  hippopotamus. He proved  to be about the size of a good jack rabbit. He was composed, other than  ears, of
  snout and long legs, with very little left over for other  necessary portions. 
  Habeas followed Monk back into the dark room. 
  "There's a mystery in here, Habeas," Monk said. "Find 'im? Sic!" 
  Habeas seemed to get the idea. He advanced. Then a very peculiar  thing happened. The big ears shot up
  straight. Habeas stiffened. Then,  very slowly, he retreated to the door. 
  "Good night!" Monk breathed. "Only other time I ever seen Habeas  act that scared was when he happened on
  a lion unexpected like down in  − " 
  Feet clattered furiously outside. Doors banged. Monk spun, whipped  the machine−gun out of his secretary's
  hands, faced the door. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  24
  
  DOC SAVAGE and Renny came in. Renny was blowing. Doc's bronze was a  little darker, as if he had been
  moving fast. 
  "All of this excitement over me?" Monk grinned. 
  "What happened?" Doc asked quietly. 
  Monk told them, ending, "Something in here gave Habeas the big  jitters. Must be something he smells. You
  can see there ain't no place  big enough for a man to hide." 
  Renny picked up the alarm clock. 
  "Different brand than the one in Doc's office," he said. "That's  easy to understand. Anybody who bought two
  alarm clocks might be  suspected." 
  "He dang thing sure raised the roof," Monk stated. 
  Doc Savage was examining the stubby spear. He pulled it out of the  wall, after giving it a yank to
  demonstrate how forcibly it had been  driven in. He turned it over and examined it for finger prints, but  found
  none. 
  "Viking," he said. 
  "What?" Renny boomed. 
  "A type of short club spear carried by ancient Vikings," Doc  elaborated. "There is a historical reference to
  them. You will notice  it is heavy enough for a club, and at the same time the leather tassel  on the end makes it
  go straight if thrown." 
  Monk got the thong which had been about his ankles. The thong had a  length of some fifteen feet beyond the
  loop. 
  Doc looked at it. 
  "Walrus hide," he said. 
  He scrutinized the knot. 
  "A rare knot," he continued. "Whoever tied it knew a great deal  about them. Sailors sometimes use this knot." 
  "The Vikings were mostly sailors," Renny said slowly. Monk  scratched his nubbin of a head. "But why
  should a Viking − and if you  find a Viking in here, I'll eat him − try to croak me?" 
  Doc Savage wheeled and started for the door. 
  Renny banged his two great fists together, boomed, "Doc!" 
  The bronze man seemed not to hear and went through the door. 
  "Doc was attacked, then Monk," Renny rumbled. "Only one thing can  explain that." 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  25
  
  Doc was out of sight now. 
  "What?" Monk barked at Renny. 
  "Somebody is tryin' to wipe our crowd out," Renny explained his  sudden suspicion. "Holy cow! Next, they
  may try to get Ham. He's the  only other one of our gang in town." 
  "Yeah," Monk mumbled. "Long Tom, the other one of our outfit is  down in South America superintending
  some kind of an electrical  project. But Ham is here in town, working on a brief." 
  "We'd better get hold of Ham!" thumped Renny. They charged into the  outer room, which Monk had
  decorated especially as a background for his  pretty secretary. 
  Doc Savage was speaking over the second of Monk's telephones. 
  "I am calling the apartment of Ham of Brigadier General Theodore  Marley Brooks," the bronze man was
  saying. "Yes, I know this is the  office of the building manager. I have called Ham's quarters, and he  does not
  answer. What is that? . . . You have called the police? . . .  You haven't? . . . Do not, then. I shall be up
  immediately." 
  Doc clicked up the receiver He addressed the others. 
  "Something terrible has happened to Ham," he said. "Come on." 
  PARK AVENUE, the swanky part of it, is noted for the manner in  which its buildings succeed in being
  imposing without being flashy.  Park Avenue has class. 
  The club where Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks − "Ham" −  had his bachelor quarters was a
  building with one of the plainest  fronts on Park Avenue. It was so exclusive that a great many Park  Avenue
  residents did not themselves know that it existed. 
  An imposing gentleman in afternoon attire met them. He was,  although he would have thrown up his hands in
  horror at the suggestion,  the head janitor. 
  He was quite rattled. 
  "Most regrettable," he murmured. 
  "Tell us about it," Doc requested. 
  "There was a most terrible uproar in Brigadier General Brooks's  quarters," he said.  "One of the other tenants
  complained, and I went  up with the fourth assistant building superintendent. From what we  found, I fear there
  has been − ah, violence." 
  Just what had given the man that idea was apparent when Doc Savage  and his two companions entered the
  sumptuous quarters which Ham  maintained. The first thing they saw was an expensive vase lying in
  fragments over the floor. Chairs were upset. Small scatter−rugs were  wadded together as if by struggling feet. 
  Almost exactly in the center of the study, which was lined with  eases holding law hooks, a knife was sticking
  upright in the floor.  Monk ambled over to it, trailed by the shote, Habeas. He eyed the  knife. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  26
  
  "Another one?" he grunted, and looked at Doc Savage questioningly. 
  "Viking," Doc Savage agreed. "Very similar to the one which struck  my back, except that it is lighter." 
  They made a quick search of the apartment and it was painfully  evident that the place did not harbor Ham. 
  "What became of him?" Doc asked the superintendent or thus the head  janitor permitted himself to be
  designated. "You say you came up and  heard sounds of an uproar. Did you enter immediately?" 
  "Not immediately," replied the other. "You see, it was necessary to  send for the master key. I − I had
  forgotten it, I regret to say." 
  "Did any one remain behind and watch the door?" 
  "Oh, yes," affirmed the flunky. "The fourth−assistant building  superintendent did that." 
  Renny boomed, "Then how in blazes did Ham disappear from his  quarters?" 
  RENNY FROWNED darkly when no one seemed to have a suitable answer  to his demand. He stamped
  around the apartment and yanked open closet  doors which they had opened before. He even examined the
  interior of  cabinets in the tiny kitchenette which was almost entirely electrical  in equipment. 
  He stopped for a moment in front of a tall case which held nearly  two dozen rich−looking black canes, each
  almost identical! in  appearance with the others. A casual inspection failed entirely to  identify the canes for
  what they were−sword canes. 
  At the bottom of the case was a niche holding a bottle, and a tiny  bejeweled pocket flask with a large
  opening. The bottle and the flask  were for the peculiar chemical concoction with which Ham was wont to
  daub the tips of his sword Cane blades. The chemical was one which  produced quick, harmless
  unconsciousness in a victim. 
  Renny noted that there were twenty−four niches for canes, and  twenty−four canes in the niches. 
  "Ham sure left here unwillingly," Renny boomed thoughtfully. "He  never goes out, if only downstairs to the
  barber shop, without one of  those sword canes." 
  "This has got me worried," Monk said gloomily. 
  Monk's gloom was somewhat out of line with his unusual manner with  Ham. The two were probably as
  quarrelsome a pair as ever got together.  No one who knew Monk and Ham could recall either having
  addressed a  civil word to the other. But Monk's present worried look indicated  plainly that he had a genuine
  affection for the missing lawyer. 
  Doc Savage was examining the windows. He tried each, then inspected  the locks closely. Every window was
  locked. 
  "There are no secret passages or doors in this apartment, I happen  to know," the bronze man said. 
  Monk waved an arm. "No place in here Ham could be hidden. No place  big enough for a man." 
  "Holy cow!" boomed Renny. "Where'd he go?" 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  27
  
  Doc Savage was unlocking the windows. He raised them, one after  another, inspected the ledges outside, then
  leaned out and looked down.  At the third window, he apparently made a discovery, because his weird  trilling
  sound was audible for the briefest of moments, a nebulous  tremolo so faint that it certainly would have
  escaped any ear less than  normal. 
  "Come on," he said abruptly. 
  The bronze man's flake gold eyes whipped about, as if searching for  some one and not finding whoever they
  sought. 
  "Where is the building superintendent?" Doc asked. 
  "He went downstairs to ask if any one had seen suspicious−looking  persons about," a flunky reported. "He
  was very worried about this  mess." 
  Doc Savage studied the flunky, who was standing watch at the door. 
  "Between the time the door was unlocked and the time I arrived, was  the door left unwatched?" Doc asked. 
  "I think so," said the other. "But there was no one in the  apartment. We looked. I ooked thoroughly. Since
  there was no one in the  apartment, there was no sense in guarding the door." 
  "Come on," Doc repeated to his men. 
  THE CLUB building had an ample concrete−floored court to the rear,  with a narrow passage leading between
  two other structures to a back  street. This was to pick up package deliveries without lowering the  dignity of
  the place by having tradespeople scampering in and out of  the front door. 
  This court was directly below tile window of Ham's quarters. Doc  Savage led Renny and Monk into the
  cement enclosure and pointed at a  spot under  Ham's window. 
  There were wet red spots on the concrete. It looked as if some one  had shaken out a brush which had been
  dipped in scarlet paint. 
  Monk tried to speak and his first effort was a wordless croak, but  on his second try, he asked in an agonized
  voice, "Is that Ham's  blood?" 
  "Very likely," Doc Savage said. 
  "But his windows were locked!" Monk exploded. "How did he get out?" 
  Doc Savage studied them both thoughtfully. It was rarely that he  did this, and it was even more rarely that he
  showed any emotion. But  now he looked as if his remarkably trained brain had just seized upon  an idea too
  preposterous for belief. 
  Monk squinted at the bronze man. 
  "Doc!" he exploded. "You've solved the mystery!" 
  "You bet!" Renny boomed. "I can tell the way you look. Just what  happened up there?" 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  28
  
  Doc Savage walked off without appearing to have heard either of  them. 
  Monk and Renny exchanged disappointed, but knowing, looks. 
  "He's got it," Monk said with certainty. 
  "Yeah," Renny agreed. "But what he's got is only a theory as yet.  He is not ready to prove it." 
  "Right," Monk finished. "He always acts like that when he's got a  good idea, but not enough proof. He
  pretends he can't hear anybody who  asks what his suspicions are." 
  Then both of them jumped. They had caught the vague trilling sound  which was characteristic of Doc Savage.
  The sound was coming from the  narrow alleyway that led from the court to the hack street. The bronze  man
  had walked down this. The trilling died away as Monk and Renny ran  down the alley. 
  Doc Savage was standing beside a dead man. 
  Doc Savage said, "This poor fellow must have come down to search,  and happened upon something, and he
  was killed." 
  The dead man was the dapper building superintendent, the very much  dressed−up gentleman who had
  admitted them to the club. They had seen  him alive only a few moments ago and it was quite horrible now,
  seeing  him again with his mouth open and a little wormlet of his life's blood  crawling out of it. 
  Monk bent over and peered at the unusual shape of the knife hilt  which protruded from the dead man's chest.
  The homely chemist looked at  Doc questioningly. 
  "Viking," Doc said simply. 
  Renny knocked his big fists together with quick, jerky swings, and  seemed to want to say something, without
  knowing what. 
  "Say," Renny mumbled. "Don't forget that mysterious business about  Johnny's radio transmitter being on.
  Johnny may be in trouble." 
  "We will get the police on this murder," Doc Savage said. 
  The bronze man walked on out of the alley. He reached the sidewalk,  looked up and down the street, and saw
  a uniformed policeman two blocks  distant. He walked toward the cop. 
  Renny, Monk and the pig, Habeas Corpus, came out of the alley and  followed him. They were a remarkable
  procession. Every one on the  street stopped to stare. 
  Doc reached the policeman. The other was very absorbed in examining  a dark cutaway coat, which he turned
  curiously in his hands. The  tailoring of the garment was exquisite. 
  Monk goggled at the coat. 
  "That's Ham's!" he barked. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 5. MYSTERIOUS CAMPAIGN
  29
  
  Chapter 6. THE SECRET IN THE RIVER
  THE POLICEMAN started when be heard Monk's strangled croak at his  elbow. He looked at them blankly.
  Then he gave another start and  saluted smartly. He had recognized Doc Savage. 
  Doc Savage had often served as a consulting expert for the police  department; the present radio system was
  his design, as was the  teletype hook−up between the various stations. As a gesture of  appreciation for that and
  other services, he had been given a high  honorary commission on the police force, and every policeman was
  given  a look at the bronze man's picture and received orders to render Doc  every cooperation. 
  "Where did you get the coat?" Doc asked the patrolman. 
  "'Twas thrown out of a car," replied the officer. "Some one told me  about it, and I just went out and picked it
  up." 
  "Description of the car?" Doc queried. 
  "Sedan," said the cop. "Black. That's all I know about it." 
  Doc took the coat, gave it a closer glance, and said,  "It is  certainly Ham's." He brought letters out of the
  inside pocket. "These  are addressed to Ham. Pockets have not been disturbed." 
  Renny grumbled, "I don't get this." 
  Without saying anything, Doc Savage walked on down the street. 
  On the third block, they found Ham's natty gray waistcoat. Some one  had evidently found it in the street and
  laid it on top of a parked  car, where they found it. 
  They went on down the street. They found a shoe, two socks, a  shirt. A stray dog was playing with the shirt. 
  Some blocks farther on, a street sweeper was wheeling his can down  a side street. It was Doc Savage who
  thought of looking into the can.  They found Ham's pants there. 
  A billfold containing two hundred and sixty−three dollars was in  the pants. The street cleaner nearly fell over
  when he saw that. He had  not searched them, because the pants were soiled, having been run over  by several
  cars. 
  They found no more garments. 
  Doc Savage carried the clothing back to the spot where he had left  his car near Ham's club.  There was a
  crowd and much excitement over on  the side street.  The body of the murdered building superintendent had
  been found. 
  Newspaper reporters were already trying vainly to get into the  exclusive club.  If one did manage to get in, he
  would probably be the  first of his kind ever to enter the place. 
  On the corner, a newsboy, unfazed by the excitement, was crying a  headline stating that no trace had been
  found of the mysterious  freebooting Vikings who had stolen a yacht. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 6. THE SECRET IN THE RIVER
  30
  
  The words of the noisy newsboy seemed to remind Renny of something. 
  "That radio of Johnny's," he rumbled. "I hope it turns out Johnny  ain't in trouble." 
  Doc Savage was in his car. He pulled special blinds. There was even  one over the windshield. It became
  surprisingly dark in the ear. 
  Doc Savage got a box−shaped apparatus out of a door pocket and  turned a switch on the side of the
  mechanism. It was a portable  ultra−violet lantern. He began going over Ham's clothing. He was using  the
  same method employed by police in examining for secret inks.  Ultra−violet light, through a fluorescing
  phenomenon, causes many  substances, ordinarily invisible to the human eye, to glow. 
  Coat, waistcoat, shirt, shoes, socks, offered nothing of value. Nor  did the first examination of the pants. Then
  Doc turned the pockets  inside out. 
  Doc had been hunting one very definite thing. All of his men  carried tiny particles of a chemical compound, a
  chalk for writing,  which left a mark entirely invisible to the unaided eye, but which the  ultra−violet light
  brought out. 
  Ham had used his piece of chalk to write on the inside of a pants  pocket. The inside of a pocket is a poor
  writing surface. They had  great difficulty distinguishing the fines at all. 
  It certainly was not a written message. 
  Monk scowled at it. 
  "Looks like be drawed a square, kinda catawampus, and put a letter  'V' on its side after that," he said. "l'd
  think he had started to  write something beginning with 'OC,' only the 'V' is laying on the  wrong side, with the
  point away from the kinda squashed−out square." 
  Doc Savage suddenly started the car. He raised the curtains. 
  Monk, climbing in hastily, gulped, "Where we going?" 
  "After Ham," Doc said. 
  "You mean them funny marks gave you an idea of where be is?" Monk  countered, hauling Habeas Corpus
  into the car by an ear. 
  "An idea," Doc agreed. 
  THE CAR gathered speed.  The newsboy at the corner yelling about  the Viking freebooters and the yacht
  craned his neck, recognized Doc  Savage, probably from some newspaper picture he had seen, and waved at
  them. Their car skidded a little on the corner, and the conductor of a  street car dropped a handful of nickels
  when they shaved his  conveyance. 
  Monk settled back, holding his pig by an ear, and even managed a  faint grin. He liked these hair−raising rides
  with Doc Savage. He  remembered some of the past ones quite distinctly. 
  "I don't see where a lopsided square and a letter 'V' lying on Its  side tells you anything, Doc," he said. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 6. THE SECRET IN THE RIVER
  31
  
  Doc Savage touched a button. A regulation police siren began  wailing under the hood, and for blocks ahead,
  policemen started halting  traffic. 
  "The lopsided square, as you call it, was meant to depict a  diamond, unless I am mistaken," Doc said. 
  "Yeah." Monk blinked. "It did, at that. What about the 'V' on its  side?" 
  "Meant to indicate the word 'point,'" Doc suggested. 
  "Point−point," Monk muttered. "I don't get it." 
  "Diamond Point," Doc Savage told him. "It is north of the city a  short distance." 
  The car hit a raised street railway crossing, was thrown up, and  seemed to travel half a block before it was on
  the ground again. 
  Monk recovered his hat and his pig. 
  "You think Ham got a chance to get a finger into his pockets, or  maybe a hand, and drew that design right
  quick," the homely chemist  said. "Yep. Ham is smart enough to think of something like that." 
  "First time I heard you admit Ham had anything on the ball," Renny  boomed. 
  "That overdressed little shyster  ... !" Monk began belligerently,  then colored and sighed. "I hope he's all right.
  If he's gotta die, I  want the pleasure of killin' him." 
  "You'd be lost without him," Renny said. 
  They swept under an elevated. The motor's roar was like the sound  of a train, for Doc had opened the muffler
  cutouts. Steel elevated  pillars went past like pickets. They slid a hundred feet with all four  wheels locked and
  got their speed down enough to take a corner. 
  Monk grinned. It was uncanny, the way Doc handled the machine. 
  Renny, noting the grin, spoke with a sober face, saying, "Want me  to drive, Doc?" 
  Monk blanched. 
  "You drive," he promised, "and I walk." 
  A motorcycle policeman, out of courtesy, tried to fall in ahead of  them to clear the way, but his speed was
  inadequate and he fell behind. 
  DIAMOND POINT was really not a point, but a ridge of rocky, rough  land along the Hudson river. Just why
  it had ever been called Diamond  Point, no one probably knew, because it did not bear the remotest
  resemblance to the shape of a diamond, and there was certainly nothing  valuable about its appearance. Being
  too rocky for agricultural value,  the region had been permitted to grow up in scrub brush and stunted  trees.
  No doubt due to the extreme number and steepness of the hills,  the State had never found it profitable to build
  a paved road into the  region, and this lack of thoroughfare, although there was a rutted dirt  road of sorts,
  added to the remote nature and inaccessibility of the  spot. 
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  The single road which did penetrate the vicinity was rough to an  extreme. It was also very muddy; this
  despite the fact that in New York  City the streets had been dry and the skies rather pleasantly clear. It  had
  rained the night before and the roads had not yet dried out,  despite the strong wind blowing. 
  Pools of dirty water stood in the ruts. Renny rode the running  board and used a big handkerchief steadily,
  keeping mud wiped off the  wind shield. The mud had proved too much for the mechanical wiper. 
  Monk hung to the edge of the window tightly to combat the bouncing  of the car over a somewhat more than
  ordinary number of rocks. The wind  made whinings around the open window. 
  "Road ain't used much," Monk gasped. "But there's been cars along  since the rain. 
  "Within the last hour," Doc told him. 
  "Huh?" 
  "The water in the ruts is very muddy," Doc pointed out. "That means  recent passage of a car has stirred it up." 
  Monk nodded, drew out his machine−gun pistol and scrutinized the  drum to make sure it was ready to feed
  cartridges properly. The bullets  in the drum looked vicious, but they were actually mercy slugs − shells  filled
  with a chemical which produced senselessness, without hardly  breaking the skin of a victim. 
  Doc Savage cut the mufflers in and the big motor became  surprisingly silent, after which Doc Savage turned
  on a radio receiver  which was almost unnoticeable under the dash.  It was an shortwave  outfit.  He adjusted the
  dials. 
  Johnny's far−away transmitter was still sending its hissing carrier  wave steadily. 
  "I'm gettin' more and more worried about Johnny," Monk grumbled. "I  got sort of a feeling in my bones." 
  Their car topped a ridge abruptly, and before them, through scrubby  trees, they could see the blue and cream
  of water, which the wind was  lashing into a foam. 
  "The Hudson river," Renny said. 
  The road angled over to the river, descending the while, until it  was very near the water. Unexpectedly, car
  tracks turned off. Doc  stopped his machine, got out, followed the tracks. They led directly to  the water, which
  was a lather of waves. 
  "Holy cow!" Renny rumbled. 
  The car was a black sedan, and it stood running board deep in the  river. All the doors were open. Doc Savage
  advanced and looked inside.  The waves whipped his ankles. 
  The interior of the sedan was splattered with red, moist droplets. 
  Doc Savage stood back; his gaze absently swept the river and he  suddenly began stripping off his outer
  clothing. 
  "Hey!" Monk exploded. "What's the idea?" 
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  Doc Savage waved a hand at the surface of the river. "See  anything?" 
  Monk squinted. "No. Nothing but a heck of a lot of waves." 
  Renny got binoculars and swept the river with them. "I see it.  Looks like an oil patch." 
  Doc Savage, clad only in shorts, entered the water. He did not seem  to exert himself unduly, hut his speed
  through the water was amazing.  Out where the oil was a multicolored film on the river, he dived. He  was
  down an incredible length of time. Then he came up and swam back.  At times, the river waves hid him. 
  "That yacht seized by the Vikings," he said, "is lying out there.  It has been scuttled." 
  MONK AND Renny exchanged startled glances, then both eyed Doc  Savage. "Sure there's no mistake?" 
  "It is the Sea Scream," Doc said. "The masts had been chopped off  before she was scuttled, and she is not far
  beneath the surface. I felt  out the raised lettering of the name on the wheelhouse." 
  Monk indicated the abandoned car. "But what does this mean? Where's  Ham? What'd they drive it in the
  water for?" 
  Doc Savage scrutinized the bottom about the car closely. The water  was clear enough for that. He found
  enough marks to tell him what had  happened. 
  "They loaded into a boat," he said. "No doubt they drove the car  into the river so there would be no tracks." 
  The bronze man now shifted his attention to the car itself,  especially the rear where the spots of blood were.
  He used the small  ultra−violet lantern which he had employed on Ham's clothing. Renny and  Monk spread
  their coats to darken the car interior. It was not  necessary to have absolute gloom for efficient working of the
  ultra−violet lantern, due to the power of the little instrument, but  murkiness helped. 
  On the floorboards, the black light brought out words written with  the strange secret chalk. 
  CARLETH, A. L. 
  "Blast it!" Monk complained. "Another darn puzzle. Hey, Doc! What  the dickens − " 
  The bronze man was running back toward their car. 
  Monk and Renny followed him. Doc had the motor running when they  got to the machine; he began turning
  around. 
  "A. L. Carleth," said Monk. "Who's he?" 
  "It is not A. L. Carleth," Doc corrected. "It is Carleth Air Lines.  You've heard of them." 
  "Heck, yes," Monk said. 
  The car picked up speed. Renny leaned out and began wiping fresh  splatters of mud off the wind shield. 
  DURING THE period when aviation took an unprecedented boom, almost  every American town of more
  than village proportions found itself with  from one to half a dozen airports. Most of these unfortunately
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  proved  to be mushroom projects started by gentlemen who had more than one  rattletrap plane, and sometimes
  not that. Collapse of the aviation boom  in its wilder aspects saw a high mortality rate among such aviation
  projects, until in most cases, it was only the sturdy, organized air  lines with mail contracts that survived.
  Carleth Air Lines was an  exception. It had no air mail contracts. It did not even fly passengers  over a regular
  route. Yet it survived. 
  The Carleth Air Lines' flying field was situated well out of New  York City, and it was marked by a rotating
  beacon, just as were the  commercial airports. 
  "We do an awful lot of flying," Monk said when they came in sight  of the beacon − plainly visible some
  miles away, because it was now  past sundown and becoming rather dark. "Yet we"ve no more than barely
  heard of this Carleth Air Lines.  Or at least I haven"t.  That's  funny." 
  Doc Savage switched off the headlights. They were on pavement and  Renny had long since gotten most of
  the mud off the wind shield. 
  "That may be because the concern is owned by Thorpe Carleth," Doc  said. 
  "How do you figure that?" Monk asked. 
  The car engine did not make much noise now, and off to the side,  they distinctly heard the moan of a
  steamboat whistle. The craft was on  the Hudson, which ran parallel to the road, not far distant. 
  "The Carleth Air Lines seems to be a rich man's plaything," Doc  Savage explained. "Thorpe Carleth is a
  wealthy man, or has the name of  being one. His air line is not really an air line at all, but consists  merely of a
  flying field, some hangars and several planes. He formerly  made a specialty of giving flying instruction to
  young society bloods." 
  "Uh−huh," said Monk. "I remember now. He sponsored one of them  attempts to fly nonstop from California
  to Rome, Italy, last summer. It  flivvered out and they lost their plane, a ship that must have cost a  quarter of a
  million. 
  The car headlights seemed to be becoming brighter, but that was  only because the night was growing darker.
  There were sudsy clouds  overhead, racing with the wind. The wind was blowing with the ear, so  that it was
  not particularly noticeable, except that shrubbery along  the road was bobbing and writhing and jumping. 
  They reached a gravel drive which must lead to the airport. Doc  went on a short distance and stopped the car.
  He had to lock the brake  to keep the wind from carrying the machine along. It was blowing a  great deal
  harder since sunset. 
  DOC SAVAGE switched off the car headlights, then punched various  switches on the instrument dial, a
  procedure which, as far as the naked  eye could tell, caused nothing to happen. 
  Out of a locker, beneath the seats, Doc produced devices which  fitted the face in the fashion of goggles, but
  had lenses more nearly  the size and shape of condensed milk cans. The lenses were connected by  wires, and
  conductors ran to a tiny battery box which could be carried  in a pocket. 
  Viewed through the goggles, the night−wrapped world underwent a  peculiar change. Ahead of the car, there
  was light, a peculiar hard  light which showed things in a colorless black and white, like a  photographic print.
  The distance values were somewhat unnatural, too.  It was as if one were looking at the world through two
  long black  tubes, to the end of which developed camera negatives were affixed. 
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  35
  
  There was a projector of infra−red light on the front of the car −  it might have been mistaken for a black siren
  of large size. These  goggles were far more intricate than they seemed, being  electro−mechanical devices
  which rendered light that was ordinarily  invisible, effective upon the optical nerves. 
  Doc Savage delved into the baggage compartment at the rear of the  car and brought out a portable projector
  of the infra−red light. Monk  shouldered the thing. It was larger than a suitcase and by no means  featherweight 
  "Take it easy," Doc Savage directed. "The apparatus is delicate."  He closed the car carefully, after working
  under the dash, 
  They swung wide to approach the airport from the side. This swing  carried them down near the edge of the
  river. 
  Monk, roving the infra−red beam, said, "A boat tied to a wharf down  there." 
  Doc Savage and the other two clambered down to the boat It was a  fast, expensive little craft about eighteen
  feet long, of the type  sometimes used as tenders on more expensive yachts. It was black and  shiny. 
  Doc Savage scratched the paint. It rolled and scooped off under his  nails. 
  "Paint is green," he said. "It has been put on within the last two  days." 
  The bronze man used a pocketknife at the bow, and the stern,  scraping off the new paint. He uncovered an
  original name which had  been painted over. It read: 
  SEA SCREAM 
  "Tender off the yacht the Vikings grabbed − the boat that is lying  scuttled back up the river there," Monk
  muttered. 
  Doc Savage lifted the hood over the powerful motor and put a bronze  hand on the cylinders. They were
  warm, very warm. 
  "Come on," he said, and moved toward the airport. 
  It was a grotesque world through which they moved, this one lighted  by the infra−red beam. It was as if they
  were part of a pale motion  picture, a picture filtered through off focus lenses, or through a  heavy cheesecloth,
  for the infra−red light did not by any means furnish  an illumination that could compete with the sun. 
  Strangely enough, the beacon, a bright light when viewed with the  naked eye, was hardly discernible through
  the filtering goggles. But  there were two hangars, rather sturdylooking structures of stucco. 
  It abruptly became apparent that the flying field might be  considered only a back yard to a house that was
  rather a surprising  structure. The mansion might have been lifted out of the North Africa  desert country.
  There was a wall of stucco, fitted with little  imitation embrasures and turrets, and inside that a rambling,
  flat−roofed house of the same material. 
  "That where Carleth lives?" Monk breathed. 
  "It would seem likely," Doc replied, low−voiced. "This is my first  time here, you know." 
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  36
  
  They listened. The wind whooped, moaned, slapped their clothing  against their limbs. The shrubbery, and
  there was a good deal of it  about, threshed and fluttered. An army could have been marching near,  and they
  might not have heard. 
  Monk muttered, "If this wind gets any stronger, it's gonna blow the  clothes right off our backs." 
  Doc Savage said, "Wait here, you two." 
  The bronze man reached over and switched off the infrared light  projector which Monk carried. Darkness
  which followed was abysmal. He  took off the filter goggles. It was almost as dark, but above,  occasional stars
  peeped from between madly racing clouds. 
  Doc Savage advanced toward the house. Silence was not difficult. A  man would have had to run for his
  footsteps to be heard. 
  There was a lighted window in the house. It had not been visible  before. The filter goggles cut out ordinary
  light. 
  Somewhere near, a branch broke out of a tree, and the wind ran it,  like a flailing monster, through the
  treetops. 
  Then Monk's voice bawled out in one of his ear−splitting combat  howls. 
  "Doc!" he squalled. "Hell's broke loose!" 
  Chapter 7. WIND AND TERROR
  DOC SAVAGE spun, put out both hands before him, and lunged back  toward the spot where he had left his
  two aides. 
  Monk was still howling. Renny was roaring something which rage and  frantic movements made inarticulate.
  One of them cut loose with a  machine−gun pistol. Its bullfiddle moan was terrific, even above the  howl of the
  wind. But there was no muzzle flame. Carefully designed  flame digesters fitted to the ends of the barrels took
  care of that. 
  Doc hit a tree. Even his scientifically trained eyes could not  penetrate the darkness. Strength in his mighty
  arms cushioned the  collision, and he veered to the left. He was close to Monk and Renny  now. 
  Then his feet hit something. It felt like something alive. It  jerked. He went down. 
  Something struck at him. Twice. Three times. He could bear the ugly  thuds, the jarring of the earth. He rolled
  to one side. 
  There was a hiss. Up from the earth came a stream of something that  resembled pale liquid fire. It splattered
  over him. It felt wet. And it  continued glowing. 
  The bronze man charged the spot from which the weird luminance had  come. His kicking, his threshing of
  arms, encountered nothing. There  seemed to be sounds all about. But it might have been the wind. 
  He did not stop to listen, for the glowing stuff that had drenched  him marked his giant figure with a pale
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  37
  
  luminance. 
  He ran toward his two aides, hauling out a flashlight. He came upon  them. 
  They were grotesque, dancing satans of pale flame. Like Doc, they  had been drenched by the glowing stuff,
  whatever it was. 
  Doc got his flashlight on. He fanned the beam. Everywhere,  shrubbery danced, shook. But that was the wind.
  Other than his two men,  there was no living being in sight. 
  Doc shifted the light back to Monk and Renny. When the electric  beam was upon them, they ceased to glow.
  The fluid which had splattered  them was a bluish−gray substance, something like pale, but thick skim  milk.
  Both wore expressions of men who had just met ghosts. 
  Monk had a gash over one ear. Coat sleeve, shirt, and some flesh  was torn from Renny's right arm. 
  Monk tried to talk, made only gargling noises in his excitement,  swallowed and tried again. 
  "There was somethin' here!" he gulped. "Where'd it go?" 
  Renny was holding his machine pistol in his left hand. He waved it. 
  "Holy cow!" he boomed. "I threw bullets around here like water out  of a hose. Sure thought I'd hit it." 
  "It?" Doc said. "Wasn't it a man, or men?" 
  Monk scratched his nubbin of a head, looked foolish, and said, "I  wouldn't bet too much on that." 
  "What do you mean?" Doc demanded. 
  "We began hearing noises like things hitting the ground bard," Monk  said. "Then this flaming stuff,
  phosphorescent juice of some kind, I  think it is, got spouted on us. It seemed to come right up out of the
  ground. Renny turned loose his machinegun pistol. Then you came." 
  "Turn your flashlights on," Doc directed. 
  They complied. 
  Doc Savage turned his flash beam on the ground. He held it there  some moments. Then he lifted the beam to
  the faces of Monk and Renny.  Their hair was not exactly standing on end, but that was only because  nature
  did not equip the human scalp to perform that phenomenon  successfully. 
  There were indentations in the ground, perhaps sixteen inches long,  wider than a human foot at one end, and
  tapering. They were deepest at  the wide end. 
  The hair−raising part, though, was the gashes edging the marks.  Gashes which might have been made by
  enormous, razor−sharp claws. 
  MONK SAID hoarsely, "I'm doggonned if I get this at all." 
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  Chapter 7. WIND AND TERROR
  38
  
  Doc Savage went ahead and studied the spot where he had been  attacked. There, where he had heard the ugly
  blows hit the ground, he  found more of the weird, horrible indentations. 
  He was bending over them when Monk and Renny, looking as if they  wanted company, joined him. 
  Renny began, in the same voice a man might use to talk to himself  when going through a graveyard, "Monk
  and me don't know exactly what to  make of this − " 
  He choked off. 
  "Holy cow!" he howled. "Look at that!" 
  That was a ghostly thing of phosphorescence that danced, like a  will−o'−the−wisp, through the trees ahead. It
  was small, rather  shapeless. It poised, as if it knew it had been discovered. 
  "I'm gonna get that thing, whatever it is!" Monk yelled, and was  off like a shot. 
  Doc and Renny followed him. Monk had the awkward appearance of a  bull ape, but he could run. Doc
  gained. Renny, who could do a hundred  in close to ten seconds, fell behind. 
  The glowing will−o'−the−wisp spot was in flight now. It traveled  with giddy speed, often lost in the
  shrubbery. It seemed to be making  toward the hangars. It was. It rounded the hangars. 
  Monk and Doc Savage rounded the first hangar structure side by  side. They stopped. The glowing spot was
  gone. 
  "I'm gonna find that thing!" Monk gritted. "Bet it'll explain that  mystery attack back there." 
  The homely chemist yanked at the sliding hangar door. It was  unlocked, and caved open. Monk dashed his
  flashlight aside. He stared  for some seconds, held almost breathless by what he saw. 
  It was a plane. An ultramodern job of chromium and stainless steel  and masterly streamlining. There were
  two enormous motors, and  streamlined bulks virtually a part of the cabin. The ship was almost a  perfect
  flying wing. 
  "Boy!" Monk breathed. "A guy could go places in that. Bet it's  almost as fast as that new speed job of yours,
  Doc. Notice the shape of  the hull for landing on water or snow, and how the landing gear cranks  down − " 
  "We were hunting something," Doc put in. "Obviously it did not go −  " 
  Renny's great, roaring voice reached their ears. "I've got it! I  got it!" 
  They whipped out of the hangar and around to the other side. They  saw Renny before their lights bore upon
  him. Renny, with the  phosphorescence smearing him, was a gargoyle of greenish flame,  struggling with a
  smaller gargoyle. 
  They got their lights on the object which Renny had captured. 
  It was the pig, Habeas Corpus, who had been smeared with the  phosphorescent juice. 
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  39
  
  RENNY MADE disgusted noises and released his captive, which he must  have surprised by rounding the
  other side of the hangar. 
  "I'm beginning to string with Ham's ideas," Renny grumbled. "That  hog ain't good for nothing but breakfast
  bacon." Monk squinted at  Habeas. The pig had a gashed flank. 
  "So you run into the big mystery, too, Habeas?" Monk grunted. 
  Habeas, the pig, looked as if he did not care greatly for the whole  procedure. 
  Doc Savage said, "We have made enough noise to arouse this end of  the county, in spite of the wind. We
  might as well walk right up to the  house." 
  The Moorish castle of a house was some hundreds of feet distant,  its presence marked by the one lighted
  window, and the fleeting,  ghostly luminance cast on its walls by the distant, rotating airport  beacon. 
  The three men kept close together. From time to time they used the  infra−red light projector, which had not
  been smashed in the  excitement. But neither with that nor their unaided eyes did they see  anything out of the
  way. 
  When using the infra−red light, they turned their flashlights off,  and the pig, Habeas, seeing their glowing
  forms in the darkness,  emitted a series of disapproving grunts and drew away. 
  "That's why he ran from us," Monk decided. "Saw this shining stuff  on us and decided we were spooks or
  somethin'." 
  "Well," Renny began. "I can't for my life figure − " 
  It sounded like overdry sticks breaking − many of them breaking in  measure, staccato procession. The sounds
  had an uneven loudness, but  that was due to the wind. 
  "Gun!" Renny boomed. "Sounded like an automatic pistol." 
  "From the house," Doc Savage said, and they ran forward. The wind  was screaming now. Leaves carried by
  the gale smacked their faces.  Occasionally there were small branches. They reached the wall, and a  gate of
  metal openwork. The wind made low, awful whinings around the  gate. 
  Doc Savage tried it. It was latched, but not locked. Doc unlatched  it and the wind tore it open with a rush and
  a bang. They went through. 
  "Holy cow!" Renny muttered. "Look!" 
  The wall inside the gate was pocked where bullets had hit. There  were a few smashed bullets on the walk. 
  They kept the flashlights on, and walked toward the house. The wind  did not blow straight inside the wall,
  but in little spiral tornadoes.  The air was full of dust, leaves, twigs. The house door was under a  little balcony.
  Doc Savage went to it while the other two stood back,  their machine−gun pistols alert. Doc banged on the
  door. It opened. 
  "Before you come in, gentlemen," said a voice from inside the  house, "I must warn you that at present it does
  not seem likely you  will ever leave the place alive." 
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  DOC SAVAGE turned his flashlight on the speaker. 
  The man was five feet five, rotund and pink. He wore plush knee  breeches, long stockings, shoes with
  buckles of silver or an imitation  that looked like silver. One sleeve of his brocaded tail coat was split  from
  shoulder to wrist; his tie and stock were askew. His hair was down  over his blue eyes. 
  "I suppose you heard us shooting, sir," he said. "I dare say the  master will be delighted, sir. We have been
  trying to get attention for  two days." 
  Doc Savage asked, "Who are you?" 
  "Peabody, sir," said the man. "Mister Carleth's manservant. If you  think it's safe, you might come inside,
  gentlemen." 
  Without moving, Doc queried, "And why should it be dangerous?" 
  Peabody, the manservant, bowed in the slightly stiff manner common  to fat men. 
  "It might be more fitting for the master to say, sir," he murmured.  "Shall I take you to him?" 
  Doc nodded. Peabody turned, led the way to a stairs, and upward.  Doc Savage was close on his heels. Monk
  and Renny dragged a little  farther back. 
  "Keep your glims open," Monk breathed to Renny. "I don't like this  screwy set−up." 
  At the top of the stairs there was a trapdoor framing darkness and  the banshee moan of wind. 
  Peabody put his head out and asked the darkness, "Have you see  anything more, sir?" 
  "No," said a shrill, nervous voice. 
  "I admitted the gentlemen, sir," said Peabody. 
  "Who are they?" asked the voice. 
  "They have not told me, sir." 
  "Damn it, you should not have let them in until you knew who they  were," snapped the voice. "Wait a
  minute." 
  A man appeared on the roof. His hair was long, white, and flying  like a rag from his head. His face was
  younger than his hair, and his  lean brown body looked sturdy enough. He wore pajamas, a dressing gown,
  carpet slippers, and he carried a 12−gauge pumpgun. 
  Peabody introduced him. 
  "The master, Thorpe Carleth," he said. 
  Thorpe Carleth looked intently at Doc Savage. A pair of rimless  spectacles dangled from Carleth's dressing
  gown by a ribbon. He  absently put the glasses on his nose. They fell off. The nose clip  seemed to be broken. 
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  41
  
  "It seems I should know you," he murmured. 
  Monk said, "This is Doc Savage." 
  "Oh−h−h," Carleth said without particular excitement. "The  gentleman who is reputedly the world's eighth
  wonder." 
  Monk scowled at that, thinking it a flippancy. Carleth saw, when he  had balanced the glasses on his nose, and
  apologized hastily. 
  "Don't mind me," he said. "I'm rattled. I'm liable to say anything.  You see, I am not accustomed to being held
  a prisoner in my own house  by an infernal hoodoo." 
  "Hoodoo?" Monk frowned. 
  Carleth murmured, "How else can you describe a blasted thing you  haven't seen and which throws the
  queerest sort of knives and spears at  you?" 
  "Old Viking knives and spears?" Monk exploded. 
  "I'm sure I don't know about that," said Carleth. 
  CARLETH DESCENDED the steps, walked into another room, and waved at  an array of crude, heavy knives
  and short, vicious spears which reposed  on a table. Doc Savage glanced at them. 
  "Viking weapons, all right," he said. 
  Carleth asked, "May I inquire what brought you here?" 
  "Search for a friend of General Theodore Marley Brooks," Doc  replied. "He was carried off rather
  mysteriously." 
  Carleth's glasses fell off and he replaced them. 
  "I say, did the captors of this fellow Ham throw bally knives and  spears and things without ever being seen?"
  he asked. 
  Monk looked at him closely, growled, "So you've been up against  'em, too?" 
  "Oh, rather." Carleth looked at Peabody. "Haven't we, Peabody?" 
  "It has been very unpleasant, sir," Peabody said correctly. 
  Carleth's glasses fell, and he let them hang. 
  "First, they took one of my two new planes at least somebody took  it," he said. "We heard the motor as it left
  the hangar, and we  naturally ran out. That was at night. We were set upon in the darkness.  We had quite a
  tussle, and got some kind of glowing stuff on us  somehow. We, ah, funked it and ran back into the house.
  Never did know  exactly what we were fighting. Dare say you don't believe me." 
  "That ain't hard to believe," Monk muttered. "We went through about  the same thing." 
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  Carleth fingered his glasses. 
  "The deuced telephone wire was cut," he said. "We could not call  for help. I heard my plane leave, and after
  that, I went out. But the  moment my nose was past the door, a blasted knife hit right beside me.  Here, I'll
  show you the mark." 
  He led them to the front door, stuck his head out gingerly, as if  he considered himself to be running
  something of a risk, and pointed at  a deep gash in the door jamb. 
  "Well, we've been here two days, afraid to leave," Carleth said. "A  few times, I've shot at things. I guess they
  were shadows, or my  imagination. Last time was a while ago. I know what the last one was.  The infernal
  wind had blown a paper onto a bush." 
  Carleth was facing the door. 
  "Watch it!" Doc Savage ripped suddenly, and shoved him. The two of  them landed heavily on the floor to one
  side. 
  Monk, Renny, had their flashlights on. They doused the beams  instinctively, not wanting to be targets,
  forgetting they were covered  with the phosphorescent substance. 
  Plunk! It was something hitting the rear of the hallway. 
  Monk turned his flash on the sound. One of the heavy Viking knives  was sticking in the wall, still humming
  from the force with which it  had struck. 
  "THAT WAS thrown from outside!" Monk bawled. He lunged to one side,  yanked down a thick velvet
  drapery, and enveloped himself in it. He  resembled an Arab in a dark burnoose as he charged out through the
  door, flashlight in one hand, machine−gun pistol in the other. 
  Renny followed after Monk, roaring irately. Peabody, the  manservant, bounced up and down as if he did not
  know what to do, then  followed the others. 
  "Better watch yourself," Doc Savage told Carleth. 
  The bronze man then followed Monk's example in enveloping himself  in a drapery, and eased out into the
  darkness. 
  Strangely enough, Doc Savage did not head for where Monk, Renny and  Peabody were threshing about,
  searching the shrubbery inside the wall.  The bronze man eased along the wall until he was at the rear of the
  house. He tried windows as he went. All were locked. 
  Doc drew a hank of silken cord from his clothing. To the end of  this was affixed a folding grapple. He tossed
  it up, snared the roof  edge − there was a wall around the roof, after the Moorish fashion −  and he climbed. He
  made no sound that could have been heard above the  wind. 
  He was banking on there being more than one trapdoor to the roof.  There was. He got it open − it was not
  locked − and descended. From the  odors, he was in the kitchen regions. He used his flashlight. It showed  only
  the conventional things. 
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  43
  
  He found stairs, descended them into a basement. it was large,  divided into rooms. He explored these. The
  second chamber he entered  had something that interested him greatly. He walked around and around  the thing
  several times, using his flashlight. 
  It was a radio outfit, transmitter and received for both short and  long wave length. It was not a portable set,
  and it was very powerful. 
  Extinguishing his flashlight abruptly, Doc listened. He had heard  something − not the wind or the searchers.
  It was inside, near the  door. He moved over there, put a hand against the door, very lightly. 
  The panel was opening. 
  DOC SET himself. The door opened wider, and he let it swing, and  when it was far ajar, and he could hear
  the vague efforts of some one  who was excited, but trying to breathe without noise, the bronze man  stepped
  forward. His movements were uncannily quiet. 
  He got a throat between his fingers. Squeezing it, he shut off all  outcry, and when he was sure he had the
  captive secure, he ran fingers  over a face, exploring the features in the intense darkness. There  might be
  others, and he did not want to use his light. 
  Doc continued to examine the face with his sensitive finger tips.  He was good at that, a relic of the weeks he
  had once spent m a school  for the blind, eyes bandaged except for daily exercise periods. 
  "Ah," he said finally, and his voice was filled with surprise. 
  The victim seemed to be trying to speak. Doc slackened his grip a  little. A small, shrill whisper came from
  the captive's lips. 
  "Let me," the whisper said, "tell you something." 
  It was strange, that whisper. It might have been a man or a woman. 
  Chapter 8. PHANTOM ENEMY
  CARLETH, PEABODY, Renny and Monk were in the hallway when Doc  Savage joined them. The bronze
  man came in from the outdoors, having  gone out by the roof trapdoor and dropped to the earth. 
  "Find anything?" he asked, and his manner was entirely casual. 
  "Not a blamed thing," said Monk. "This is givin' me the willies. I  even had Habeas snoop, and he's as good as
  a bloodhound. He didn't find  anything." 
  "The pig never even acted queer, like he did in Monk's penthouse,"  Renny added, booming. 
  Carleth perched his glasses on his nose and held his head back so  that they would stay there. 
  "Now you begin to understand what I am up against," he said  nervously. "We seem to be hounded by a −
  phantom enemy." 
  "We might search the house," Doc Savage said. 
   QUEST OF QUI
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  44
  
  "Of course," Carleth agreed readily. 
  They found nothing, and eventually, they came to the radio room. 
  Doc Savage glanced at the apparatus and seemed surprised. "Why did  you not use this to summon help?" he
  asked. 
  "I know nothing of radio," Carleth said. "But Peabody here, is an  operator. Picked it up in the war, you
  know." 
  "The apparatus has been out of order," Peabody said, without  changing a face muscle. "Something burned
  out. I do not know how it  happened." 
  "I installed the deuced radio a long time ago, when I had visions  of starting a regular air line, you know," said
  Carleth. 
  They continued their search of the house, poking into closets, coal  bins, chests. They tried window after
  window and found them all locked  on the inside. 
  "We were very careful about that," said Carleth. 
  "Indeed we were," Peabody agreed in the manner of a perfect  servant. 
  They completed their search, and there was nothing amiss. 
  They wound up in the hallway again, where Monk walked over to the  knife that was sticking in the wall.
  Monk pulled the knife out. He  looked at it, and amazement rushed over his homely features. 
  "Doc!" he gulped. "This knife − " 
  Doc Savage made a small gesture admonishing silence. Monk swallowed  the rest of his bewildered
  exclamation, and made sure neither Carleth  or Peabody had noticed; then, at the first opportunity, he cornered
  Doc  alone. 
  "That knife," he muttered. 
  "What about it?" Doc asked. 
  "It's the same one that was thrown at you in your office," Monk  grunted. "I'm dead sure, because it's got some
  of that finger print  vapor coloring on it. You know, the same stuff you said you used on  it." 
  "It is the same knife," Doc told him. "I was carrying it around  with me." 
  Monk choked, "Then you − " 
  "Threw it myself," Doc admitted. 
  "But why?" 
  "To start some excitement, and give me an opportunity to look  around without any one knowing," Doc
  replied. 
   QUEST OF QUI
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  45
  
  "Blazes!" Monk breathed. "What'd you find?" 
  Doc Savage seemed not to hear that. 
  PEABODY, THE manservant, came up to them and murmured politely,  "The master has a suggestion." 
  "Can't he talk himself?" growled Monk, who was disappointed because  he had not gotten the information he
  hoped for out of Doc. 
  Carleth, smiling wryly, approached and said, "I should like to  visit my hangars and see if they damaged my
  other new plane. You see, I  have only two ships of any value, and I must confess they represent the
  investment of my last cent in the world. If you gentlemen had the idea  I am wealthy, you were mistaken. You
  are looking at a gentleman who  should like very much to make a few dollars." 
  They left the house. Carleth produced strong electric hand  lanterns, and they carried these. When they
  reached the hangars, he  turned on the field floodlights, and thereafter there was light  aplenty. 
  With more than average anxiety apparent in his manner, Carleth went  over the big speed plane which Doc
  and the others had seen earlier. 
  Monk stood back and admired the remarkable plane again. 
  "Some job," he breathed. "Some job." 
  Carleth stood back. 
  "I bought the two of them for a round−the−world record attempt," he  said. "Yes, they are unusual ships. They
  cost almost two hundred  thousand apiece." 
  He tried to make his spectacles stick, failed, and held them on his  nose with one hand. 
  "I do wish I knew whether the other ship went," he said grimly. "It  was not insured. Upon finding it depends
  my immediate financial future.  In fact, if I do not get it back, I am ruined." 
  Carleth paced about nervously, eventually wandering into the office  which adjoined one end of the hangar.
  The instant he was in there, he  stared at the large map cases arrayed along one wall. One of the cases  was
  open. 
  "Dratted queer," he said, and went to the open case. 
  He riffled through the charts within for some moments. 
  "I say!" he exploded in a surprised voice. 
  Doc came over. "What is it?" 
  "Ordinarily, I do a business of renting out ships for long,  dangerous flights which the regular air lines and
  barnstorming pilots  will not attempt," Carleth explained. "For that reason, I have complete  charts for most of
  North America. The men who took the plane seem to  have made off with some of my charts as well." 
  "What charts?" Doc queried. 
   QUEST OF QUI
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  46
  
  "Those covering a line drawn generally from here to Greenland,"  Carleth elaborated. 
  Renny blinked, rumbled, "That radio of Johnny's!" 
  CARLETH, LOOKING very interested, demanded, "Would you mind telling  me why you seem so
  surprised?" 
  Renny eyed Doc. "Any objection?" 
  "None," Doc told him. 
  Renny told about the radio transmitter of Johnny's which was in  such mysterious, continual operation,
  without any actual transmitting  being done. He told what the direction finder had revealed about the
  whereabouts of the transmitter. 
  "Very puzzling," Carleth murmured. "But it hooks up. The stolen  charts cover the same direction from which
  the transmitter wave is  coming." 
  "There's a connection," Renny agreed, and knocked his big, hard  fists together. 
  Peabody advanced and said something to Carleth in a voice so low  that none of the others caught it. Peabody
  used a tiny whisper. Anyway,  the wind outside was making cyclone noises. The hangar squeaked, moaned
  steadily. 
  Doc Savage, was watching Peabody intently as he spoke. Doc had  first learned to read lips when he was very
  young. 
  "Peabody has an excellent suggestion," Carleth murmured. "It is his  thought that we might join forces. You
  are interested in finding your  colleague, Johnny. I am interested, very interested, in recovering my  stolen
  plane. So may I offer you use of my other ship, here, in  pursuing your enemies more correctly, I should say,
  our joint enemies?" 
  It was earnestly put, convincing. Monk and Renny glanced at Doc  Savage, plainly wondering what his
  reaction would be. Doc had a speed  plane of his own, but it was only a little faster than this amazing
  supership. 
  Doc said, "You forget, Carleth, that we have to find our man, Ham,  who is missing here in the vicinity of
  New York." 
  Carleth nodded. "True. May I offer you every assistance." 
  Doc Savage seemed to consider briefly. 
  "1 will get in touch with you," he advised. 
  Carleth, if he felt disappointment, did not show it. He was still  holding his spectacles on his nose with one
  hand. 
  "What do you suggest I do?" he asked. "Call the police?" 
  "Are you willing to stay in your house for a while?" Doc asked. 
   QUEST OF QUI
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  47
  
  Carleth smiled wryly. "We managed for two days. Nothing seemed to  menace us as long as we remained
  inside. Yes. I will try it − " 
  FIVE MINUTES later, Doc Savage, Monk, Renny and the pig, Habeas,  were headed for the spot where they
  had left the bronze man's car. They  had left Carleth and his servant, the perfectly mannered Peabody, in
  Carleth's stucco home. 
  Monk grumbled, "If I didn't know enough about your ideas to be sure  they're better than any I'd have, Doc, I'd
  make a suggestion." 
  "What?" Doc asked. 
  "Hang over that place back there like a cloud," Monk said. "1 got a  hunch we might turn up something." 
  "Ham," Doc Savage replied, "is not around there." 
  "Huh!" Monk exploded. "You're sure?" 
  "Positive." 
  Renny emitted an astounded rumble, then pointed a huge hand. "I'll  say he's not there. Look!" 
  They had come close enough so that their flashlight beams had  picked up their car. 
  Ham was lying motionless beside it. 
  HAM − BRIGADIER General Theodore Marley Brooks − was a noted  lawyer, but he was probably better
  known for something else. His  clothes. He was the Beau Brummell of New York, if not of the twentieth
  century. He was a tailor's dream. Tailors had been known to follow him  down the street, just to see clothes
  being worn as they should be. 
  Ham's garb just now would have been a disappointment, however. It  consisted entirely of a gunnysack, none
  too clean. Two holes had been  torn in the bottom for Ham's legs, and he filled the rest of the sack −  it was not
  a very large on snugly indeed. 
  There was a cut on his shoulder. It was not serious, and had long  since stopped bleeding. 
  They stood over him. He snored. It was a very loud, peaceful snore;  it had to be to arise above the gale. 
  Monk frowned blackly and drew back a foot, preparatory to kicking  the snoring, gunnysackclad Ham in the
  ribs. 
  Renny pushed the homely chemist off balance. "What's the idea?" 
  "I'll teach 'im to lay down and go to sleep when we're sweatin'  blood tryin' to find 'im!" Monk gurgled. "I'll
  kick his innards all  over that car!" 
  "Wait," Doc Savage said. "He was caught in a trap of mine." 
  "Huh?" said Monk. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 8. PHANTOM ENEMY
  48
  
  Doc demonstrated an ingenious mechanical device which had  completely escaped discovery by Monk and
  Renny in their previous use of  the car. 
  "When the switch hidden under the dash is thrown, it completes a  connection so that, when the car doors are
  disturbed, an odorless,  colorless gas is released from a container under the chassis," Doc  explained. "The gas
  produces unconsciousness. Thinking that some one  might visit the car while we were gone, I turned it on." 
  Monk looked Ham over, grinned widely, and said, "I oughta kick his  sides in anyway. Don't he look pretty ill,
  that oat sack?" 
  Doc Savage got a medical case from the car and went to work on the  recumbent, snoring, Ham. 
  "Ham should have an interesting story to tell," said the bronze  man. 
  "Bet he don't know a thing," Monk grunted. "He's the kind that  wouldn't." 
  MONK CAME near being right. 
  Ham came out under the urging of a combined stimulant and nullifier  for the affects of the anaesthetic gas,
  which was harmless and a type  Doc Savage frequently used. 
  Dazed, Ham murmured, "What − where − " 
  "Don't tell him," Monk said sourly. "Let him guess where he is." 
  Ham said nothing more until he had full control of his faculties.  Then he addressed Monk clearly and with a
  great deal of feeling. 
  "You bug−faced ape," he said. 
  Monk glowered in a manner which was in marked contrast to his  earlier expressions of concern over Ham's
  welfare. 
  "What happened to you?" Doc Savage asked Ham. "Start explanations  with your apartment." 
  "I heard a vase break," Ham said. "I turned toward the sound. I did  not see anything. Then something
  whacked me on the head. I went down. I  was stunned, but not out. Before I could see what had hit me, a
  black  cloth of some kind was thrown over my head and held there. I fought. It  was funny − " 
  "Ha, ha!" said Monk. "I'd like to have seen it." 
  Ham said, "I'll poison you some day!" and went on with his story. 
  "By funny, I mean it was strange," Ham continued. "During the  fight, I did not have the impression of
  battling human beings. There  were real things there, all right, but − I don't know. I was dazed. I  did get my
  hand on what felt like a knife, and struck, but the knife  point stuck in the floor and I lost it. Then I was
  knocked out  completely, slammed entirely cuckoo." 
  "Cuckoo is right," Monk said unkindly. "But I think you got it  earlier than that." 
  Ham ignored him. 
   QUEST OF QUI
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  49
  
  "I came to being lowered from the window by a rope," Ham said. "At  least, I suppose it was the window.
  Anyway, I was dragged across a  cement pavement, an alley, it smelled like, and dumped into a car." 
  "Men dragged you?" Doc asked. 
  "I don't − know," Ham said earnestly. "It was a very bad dream. But  of course, it must have been men." 
  "Of course," leered Monk. "Or maybe it was little birds." Ham,  pretending not to hear, continued, "In the car,
  I heard a sound as if  some one had come up and discovered what was going on. I think I  recognized the voice
  as belonging to the superintendent of my club  building. There was a horrible sound later, as if − did they kill
  him?" 
  "They did," Doc said soberly. 
  "He was a decent fellow," Ham said gently. 
  They were all silent. 
  MONK WAS first to speak, and he left the quarrelsomeness out of his  voice now. "The chalk message we
  found in your trousers?" 
  "Oh, yes," Ham said. "I got a hand in my pocket, after they began  yanking my clothing off. There was a man
  driving the car. I am sure of  that. I heard him say something about Diamond Point, so there must have  been
  another man, too. I managed to leave the message in my pocket.  Then they knocked me out again. They must
  have thought I was fishing in  the pocket for a weapon." 
  "And what else?" Doc asked. 
  "Oh, they kept knocking me over the head when I woke up," Ham said.  "It was very tough to keep them from
  knowing when I was reviving. In  fact, I did not do it. Did you ever see a man regain his senses without  some
  subconscious stirring about?" 
  "You got a chance to write on the floorboards!" Doc pointed out. 
  "Yes," Ham admitted. "I caught something about the Carleth Air  Lines. I got that on the floorboards. Had the
  chalk for that invisible  writing in my hair. Stuff is a little sticky, you know. You can put it  in your hair and
  it'll stay there." 
  "Continue," Monk suggested. 
  "The next thing I knew, I was fifty feet or so from this car," Ham  said. "I had regained my senses. I was in
  this − this gunnysack." 
  "It becomes you," Monk told him. 
  Ham glared, said, "That's all I know. And before I do anything  about it, I'm going to get some clothes." 
  Monk seemed to think of something that made him chuckle. 
  Ham glowered, "Now what?" 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 8. PHANTOM ENEMY
  50
  
  "I just thought," Monk said, "of what a picture you'll make going  into your club in that gunnysack." 
  Doc got the car headed toward New York. Doc did not drive as  rapidly as he had coming out, by a good deal.
  Especially was he careful  on the hills which were exposed to the full force of the wind. 
  At one point, there was a tree down across the road, but their  machine crashed around it, although afterward
  Renny got out and  disengaged a branch from the underside of the chassis. 
  "Now that we've got Ham, we're heading north to see what's wrong  with Johnny?" Monk asked. 
  "We are," Doc Savage agreed. 
  "But what about, all of this mysterious business, the Viking  freebooters and the Viking weapons and the
  mysterious attackers and the  rest of it?" Monk queried. 
  "Johnny's safety comes above all of it," Doc replied. 
  After a time, when they headed into metropolitan New York, Monk  knew by the route that Doc Savage was
  driving that the bronze man was  heading for the airplane hangar which he maintained, disguised as a  huge
  warehouse, on the Hudson River water front. 
  The wind seemed to be getting worse. Women walked bent over,  holding skirts below their knees. Men held
  their hats, or carried them  under their arms. Paper, leaves, trash was all over the streets. 
  They passed a big sign which had blown down. Farther on, workmen  were boarding up a glass window which
  had collapsed. 
  "Merry old springtime," Renny rumbled gloomily. 
  "It's things like this that makes sailors quit the sea," Monk  grinned. 
  Ham started, pointed ahead. "Look. Isn't that a fire?" 
  Four blocks more, and they saw it was a fire. They were on the  elevated speedway along the Hudson. Doc
  Savage drove, more rapidly. 
  It was a big fire. The wind snapped off pieces of flame and carried  it hundreds of feet. The blaze flickered red
  against the clouds. There  was a fire apparatus, a crowd, policemen, excitement. 
  Renny reared up abruptly to get a closer look. 
  "Holy cow!" he boomed. 
  The burning structure was Doc Savage's warehouse hangar. 
  THEY FOUND a policeman who told them, in two sentences, all that  they learned, even by questioning all
  others who had seen the thing  start. 
  "A guy backed a truck loaded with oil drums, and probably a few  cases of dynamite, up against the place,
  then got out and ran," said  the cop. "Pretty soon the truck went flooey!" 
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  51
  
  Doc Savage and his aides were very busy during the next hour. There  was much to be done. There was
  valuable equipment other than planes  stored in the great building − a submarine of a new and amazing type
  upon which Doc Savage was experimenting, and adjacent to that, a small  dirigible which the bronze man had
  developed to a point where it could  make stratosphere flights. 
  They saved the dirigible, the submarine, and some other stuff. The  fire did not even get through the partitions
  to them. Police lines −  and the wind − kept the crowd back. 
  Not one of Doc Savage's planes survived the fire. The hangar wall  had been blown in on them, accompanied
  by a flood of flaming gasoline −  it had been gasoline in the barrels on the truck. 
  "Don't nobody need to tell me what was behind this," Monk growled  when they finally got a breathing spell.
  "Somebody don't want us to go  hunting Johnny." 
  "Simple reasoning," Renny agreed. 
  "What other kind of reasoning could you expect from Monk?" Ham  asked. 
  HAM WAS feeling more chipper. He had borrowed a long rubber coat  from a fireman, but not before he had
  provoked much astonishment and  mirth by tearing about clad only in a gunnysack. 
  "I'm going to get some clothes from the club," Ham said in a  determined voice. "I can't understand why they
  threw my other garments  away after they seized me." 
  "Whoever, or whatever, your captors were, they must have heard of  the gadgets Doc and ourselves use,"
  Renny reminded him. "They were  afraid you would have some of the things in your clothing. Getting rid  of
  the garments was easier than searching you." 
  Ham said, "Well, I'm off to get some decent clothes on." 
  "You have a cold country outfit, have you not?" Doc asked. 
  "Brand new," Ham admitted. "Made by the best fur house in the city.  No crude Eskimo work on them." 
  "Better bring them," Doc said. "Monk, Renny, better get your own,  too. You have them, haven't you?" 
  "Sure," Monk grunted. "I got some left from that last dizzy trip we  took up there, that time we found that
  fantastic place underground." 
  Renny queried abruptly, "Just how are we going up there, Doc?" 
  "The fastest way," the bronze man told him. "By plane. We'll  install a radio compass and run down Johnny's
  transmitter. We've got to  get to it before the batteries give out, too." 
  "And where will we get a suitable plane?" Renny demanded. "A trip  like that will take more than an ordinary
  ship." 
  "We are going to accept Thorpe Carleth's kind offer of  cooperation," Doc Savage said. 
   QUEST OF QUI
  Chapter 8. PHANTOM ENEMY
  52
  
  Chapter 9. TERROR IN THE NORTH
  IT was cold over that part of Canada lying to the south and west of  Greenland. Most of the inhabited world
  called this season spring. But  there it was bitter. The thermometer on the strut outside the window of  the
  plane read forty−eight below zero. No doubt it was a little warmer  down below. 
  "Darned cold snap, even for up here," Monk grumbled. 
  The homely chemist was mixing chemicals. He was concocting a bitter  mixture to put on the small overall
  jacket of fur which he had  fashioned for the pig. Habeas, his purpose being to discourage Habeas's  inclination
  to chew the legs off the garment. 
  Thorpe Carleth had been studying the rugged terrain below with  binoculars. He shuddered, put the binoculars
  down. He fished out his  spectacles and sat them on his nose. He had not gotten the nose clip  repaired, and had
  to keep his head tilted back to balance the  spectacles in place. 
  "I hate to think of what would happen to my ship if they had a  forced landing down there," he murmured.
  "You know, I'm rather out of  luck if I find they've crashed the bus somewhere." 
  Renny rumbled, "What we're interested in is what happened to  Johnny." 
  Peabody, the perfect manservant, sat in the rear, taking no part in  the conversation. 
  Ham watched Peabody from time to time with something bordering on  admiration. It had long been Ham's
  ambition to acquire for himself a  manservant who left nothing to be desired. In Peabody, Ham believed be
  saw the fulfillment of all his dreams. Earlier in the long flight from  New York, Ham had spoken with
  Peabody, and discovered that the  efficient Peabody knew his business. 
  Peabody was the sort of a valet who would be horrified at wearing a  black bow tie with full dress, the black
  bow being reserved for tux.  Ham was half inclined to entice Peabody from his master by offering a  larger
  salary. 
  Doc Savage had spoken little for a long time. The bronze man was at  the rear, working over a sensitive radio
  direction finder. He had  arranged the loop so that it was outside the plane. 
  They were heading straight for Johnny's radio transmitter. They had  been heading straight for it for a long
  time. The hissing still  emanated from the loud−speaker. 
  Monk came back and listened to the hissing. 
  "Blazes!" he muttered. "You got the volume control cut down?" 
  "It is on more than it was," Doc said. 
  "Then the signal is getting weaker," Monk muttered. "The batteries  on the transmitter are running down." 
  Doc Savage nodded. 
  "Change the course to northwest a half west," Doc Savage directed. 
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  53
  
  Renny was piloting. Surprise came over his long, puritanical−lookmg  face. But he made the course shift, after
  which they were flying almost  at right angles to their previous route. 
  Doc Savage offered no explanation. They held that course for  something near forty−five minutes. 
  Doc Savage worked over the radio compass the while. The most  effective method was to get the signal to the
  weakest point on the  rotation loop dial, and read the bearing at right angles to that, but  this was no longer
  possible. Only when the loop was directly upon the  signal could it be picked up at all. 
  Doc Savage read the bearing carefully, then turned to the sextant,  leaned out of a window and hurriedly took
  a sight for position. He  worked the sight, spotted it on the chart, and drew a line, with  protractor, in the
  direction indicated by the bearing. 
  Monk saw, then, what the bronze man had done in changing course. He  had gotten two bearing lines on
  Johnny's transmitter; where they  crossed would be the approximate  of the transmitter. 
  Doc put the plane back toward the weak radio signal. Twenty minutes  later, the signal was not audible at all.
  The transmitter batteries had  given out entirely. 
  "Boy, it's lucky you got that cross bearing," Monk grunted. 
  "In three hours and twenty minutes, we should pick up the  transmitter," Doc Savage said, after calculations. 
  The three hours and twenty minutes passed without incident. 
  The chart was of little use to them now. This was a British  Admiralty chart, and it bore only surveys actually
  made. These were  surprisingly few; they gave an idea of the character of the coastline,  not much more. 
  "This country is pretty much unknown," Renny offered. He frowned at  the terrain below. "I wouldn't give
  thirty cents for all of it." 
  Doc Savage took over the controls. The sky above was mottled. Ahead  was a gray haze − snow. They
  reached the snow area soon. It screamed  against the propeller blades and, driven against the fuselage,
  sounded  like sand from a blasting blower. 
  The bronze man sank the ship lower and lower. There was  unpleasantly little visibility. Long minutes passed. 
  "We've gone over the spot," he decided. 
  He turned back, but instead of wasting time hunting, climbed until  he found the top of the clouds at fourteen
  thousand feet, took an  astronomical sight. 
  When he had worked out the position, he put the plane down again.  Less than two hundred feet above the
  snow, he flattened out and began  flying back and forth, searching. 
  The other men used binoculars. Yet it was the bronze man's trained  flake−gold eyes which picked up first
  evidence of what they sought. 
  "Wrecked plane," he said grimly, and bent off in a sharp bank to  the right. 
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  The others saw the ship, practically buried in the drifts adjacent  to a forest of huge boulders. It was only
  scattered bits. 
  "Johnny's ship," Doc announced. "From the looks of the thing, it  was blown up." 
  A moment later Doc executed a landing in the snow. Carleth became  pale during the landing; Peabody
  moistened his lips several times.  Monk, Ham and Renny showed no concern. They knew from the past what
  Doc  could do with a plane. 
  The bronze man clambered out. There was a foot or two of loose snow  on the level, a crust beneath, and it
  was blowing, but not hard. 
  They searched the wreckage of Johnny's plane, combed the immediate  vicinity. Time after time they kicked
  through the drifts, searching. 
  They found no trace of Johnny. 
  The snow was cold, and it squealed under their moosehide footgear  as they moved about. 
  Doc Savage moved back into the clearing, scrutinizing this level  place in the wilderness of stone and snow.
  He was drawn by what at  first appeared to be a snowdrift of unusual formation. He approached  it. The
  certainty grew that it was snow drifted over a human body. 
  "Johnny!" Monk exploded in horror. 
  But it was not the gaunt geologist whom they were bunting. It was  the man Johnny had found dying, and who
  had been killed by Kettler,  although Doc and the others, now, had no way of knowing that. 
  Doc brushed snow away from the stonily frozen cadaver. The fact  that the man had worn a heavy beard until
  a short time before his death  stood out even more distinctly in his present condition. 
  Thorpe Carleth fished his glasses out of his parka, held them on  his nose, and peered at the dead man. 
  "I say!" he exploded. "I remember this chap." 
  Doc Savage watched Carleth intently. "Yes?" 
  Carleth glanced at the correct Peabody. "Am I right, Peabody? Isn't  this a mechanic whom I employed about
  two years ago?" 
  "Yes, sir," said Peabody. "You discharged him for undue  intoxication, sir." 
  "Know anything more about him?" Doc asked. 
  "No," said Carleth. 
  "I never did like the gentleman," said Peabody. "No reason for  that, sir." 
  Doc Savage announced, "We will look for some trace of Johnny." 
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  They spread out in a line, each separated from the other by a few  yards, and began combing the vicinity. They
  found enough traces to show  them two planes had landed in the clearing − Johnny's and another. They  found
  where the other ship had taken off. 
  Carleth measured the marks of the latter ship carefully, then  nodded vehemently. 
  "This was my stolen ship!" he declared. "Barring, of course, the  presence of another ship with similar
  measurements, which is not  likely." 
  They came upon the stream, frozen over, but the gurgle of running  water − when an ear was placed close to
  the ice − was audible. 
  Doc Savage located the frozen litter where a pit had been chopped  in the thick−crusted ice. Snow had drifted
  over it. He kicked the white  flakes away. 
  A bit of cloth projected from the ice. It was part of a garment,  the rest of which was frozen deep. Doc Savage
  studied the cloth  closely. Renny came up and stared with him. 
  "Holy cow!" Renny yelled out. "That's Johnny's woolen blouse that  he always wore under his parka!" 
  MONK AND Renny raced back to the plane and returned with light  axes. They hacked furiously at the ice. It
  was brittle, came up in  showers. Sharp fragments punished their faces. The ice was clearer near  the bottom.
  Renny broke out a chunk which broke clear, so that be could  see down into the ice. 
  He made out a shapeless blob of fur, an elongated blob. 
  "Johnny's body!" he moaned. 
  A split−second later, Doc Savage straightened. He listened  intently, dropped his axe, and raced toward their
  plane. 
  Then the others heard what he had heard. A plane motor! It was in  the distance, but becoming louder in a way
  which showed it was headed  toward them. Then its fainter sound was lost in the blasting whoop as  Doc got
  the engine of their own plane going. 
  "He's leaving without us!" Thorpe Carleth screamed, and raced madly  for their plane. 
  He did not make it. The engine was still warm, and Doc Savage got  the tail of the ship up. Snow climbed up
  in a great funnel around the  plane. The ship climbed a drift, bounced, climbed another, did not  settle, knocked
  the top off a third mound of snow, and was in the air. 
  Carleth stood watching it, wringing his hands. Apparently he found  much in the prospect of being left behind
  on the snow to horrify him.  Doc banked away. 
  The other ship appeared. It was almost identical with the one Doc  was piloting. 
  "My other ship!" Carleth bowled. 
  A man leaned from the plane. He had a rifle. It began to lip flame. 
  "They're trying to kill us!" Carleth shrieked, and ran, arms  threshing the air as he fought the snow. 
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  "Dive into a drift!" Renny boomed. "Cover yourself up with snow.  They can't pick you out from up there." 
  Suiting action to his words. Renny shot into a drift headfirst.  Such was his momentum that he buried himself
  completely in the soft  flakes. He stamped through the crust and got down deeper. 
  Renny could hear noises in the snow which told him the others were  doing the same thing. The noise of the
  attacking plane went away 
  The ship arched off, obviously intending to conic back. Then the  pilot discovered Doc Savage's ship. He
  twisted thin lips in a snarling  grimace of confidence. 
  "This is gonna be easy," he gritted. "I cut my teeth on combat  stuff, back in the war." 
  Doc Savage, if he felt apprehensions, did not show them. The other  ship was loaded with men and guns. The
  two planes were no doubt alike  in speed, maneuverability, with the other possibly a shade slower  because of
  its load. 
  Doc slammed head−on at the other craft. Its prop was big, and they  had no gun synchronized to shoot through
  it. The propeller blades  prevented them firing at him. 
  The bronze man dug into a metal duffel box which he had dragged  forward before taking off. It held extra
  machine−gun pistols and some  of the marked ammunition drums. There was a sliding window over the  pilot's
  seat. Doc intended to fly under the other ship and try to get  its propeller in passing. 
  But the other pilot was no tyro. He nosed down, almost against the  snow−sheathed earth. Because there was
  nothing else to do, Doc went  over him. 
  The bronze man's plane trembled as a lead storm swept it. A cockpit  window acquired a round bullet hole.
  Back in the cabin, equipment  jumped about. One box upset, began to give out smoke and fumes. That  was
  Monk's tiny portable chemical laboratory, which he always took with  him. Lead must have broken some of
  the bottles. 
  Doc arched around. He began to cough violently. His eyes ran. He  swayed, all but fell out of the cockpit seat. 
  It was the chemical fumes overcoming him. 
  ASPHYXIATION HAS a queer way with a man. It upsets his mental  balance, causes him to do the
  unexpected, and it enwraps him in a  grisly lethargy of uncare for what happens. Such was the affect of the
  fumes from the broken chemical bottles. Doc fought it with a great  mental effort. 
  Probably the bullet hole in the window helped more than anything.  It let in screaming fresh air that pushed
  the fumes back. Doc struck  the window with a fist, knocking out the glass, cutting his metallic  knuckles a
  little. 
  He pumped air into his lungs and that cleared his head. He was  flying level. The other plane pursued.
  Occasional bullets hit Doc's  ship. 
  The bronze man held his breath, heaved out of the cockpit, ran  back, and wrenched open a window in the rear
  of the cabin. The draft  cleared out the fumes. He tugged at the metal case from which the fumes  came. It was
  lashed down. 
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  Before Doc could free it to throw it overboard, the plane,  disturbed by his shifting weight, was moaning
  toward a crash, and be  had to get to the controls. Not much vapor was coming from the box now,  anyway. 
  The bronze man was still groggy. He put the plane into a climbing  spiral, sparring for time, for a clearer head.
  The other ship followed  him up, striving to rake him with lead, always just failing, and unable  to climb quite
  as fast as Doc's bus. 
  The altimeter needle marched to eighteen thousand, where the  thermometer said it was fifty below, and there
  they fought, above the  clouds, jockeying, diving, zooming. Time was interminable. They paid no  attention to
  where they were carried, for all of their thoughts were on  saving their lives. 
  It was Doc Savage who triumphed, and he did it by strategy, getting  in front of the other plane and fleeing.
  Then he clipped a certain  special ammo drum in his machine−gun pistol, leaned out and fired  steadily and
  long at the other ship. 
  Doc was aiming at the motor, and he was using bullets charged with  the chemical which formed a vapor that,
  drawn into a carburetor, made  the mixture noninflammable. 
  It had effect, just as his drum ran empty, and there were no more  of the special bullets aboard. The motor of
  the other ship stopped. 
  Surprise caused the pilot to fall into a spin after he had stalled,  but he centered his controls and pulled out,
  then went into a vertical  dive and vanished, with the speed of a dropping stone, into the clouds. 
  Doc followed them down. He kept track of them in the clouds for a  time. But the clouds thickened. He lost
  track of his quarry. 
  He hunted for a long time. He floated down close to earth, and  arched back and forth, seeking the other ship,
  or the wreck of it, if  it had crashed in landing. 
  He saw numerous spots at which a good pilot could have landed. He  did not see the other ship. 
  RENNY AND Monk were excited when Doc Savage came back to them. It  was a glad excitement, not
  caused entirely by his safe return. 
  "Johnny!" Renny bawled, his great roaring voice on full power. 
  "What about him?" Doc asked. 
  "We dug out the hole in the ice," Renny whooped. "That thing we  thought was his body wasn't! It was his
  parka!" 
  "Then Johnny must be alive," Doc Savage said grimly. 
  Chapter 10. THE GOLDEN−HAIRED GIRL
  JOHNNY WAS alive. He did, however, hold more than a sneaking  suspicion that he was going to freeze to
  death. He shivered more  violently than he would have believed possible, and his teeth rattled  like several dice
  receiving a hard shaking in a glass. 
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  A stocky, bulb−nosed man looked at Johnny and said, "My gosh, you  rattle all over, don't you?" 
  "Facetious asssertations are an infelicitous necessitarianism,"  Johnny remarked gloomily. 
  "My gosh," gasped the bulb−nosed man. "Does cold always bring words  like that out of you?" 
  Johnny said nothing and devoted himself to a shiver of  extraordinary violence, after which he made a mental
  decision that the  person who had advanced the theory that shivering helps keep one warm  had either been
  perpetrating a joke, or had been badly mistaken. 
  Johnny's present garb consisted of red−flannel underwear, which he  had prudently donned in New York, and
  two blankets, neither comfortably  heavy. This was no equipment with which to sit in a cave hollowed out  of
  snow, with the thermometer well below zero. His wrists were tied  with rope. 
  Some moments ago, Johnny had heard a plane overhead. Previous to  that, the plane of his captors, which had
  gone away for a time, had  returned in what seemed to be a great hurry, and there had ensued some  noise and
  excitement. Johnny had not been able to figure out what this  last had meant. 
  "What chicanery is eventuating?" he demanded. 
  The bulb−nosed man had a rifle, which he kept tucked in his armpit  − the breech mechanism portion − where
  the cold would not affect it.  There were two other riflemen outside. 
  "Translate that," the guard requested. 
  "What is going on?" Johnny asked. 
  "Shut up," said the guard. 
  The other two guards came crawling in from a snow tunnel which led  out of the hastily improvised prison
  cell. They demanded to know what  was the meaning of the conversation which they had just heard. 
  "Just this bag of bones and his words," said the bulb−nosed one. 
  "We oughta let him freeze in that ice pit full of water," growled  another. "Wonder what made Kettler decide
  to keep him alive all of a  sudden." 
  "Search me," said the first. "Some big idea, I guess." 
  To their ears came sounds of a man expressing himself roundly and  violently in profanity. 
  "That must be Kettler," a man chuckled. "He's kinda peeved. That  Doc Savage almost plucked his tail
  feathers a while ago." 
  Johnny, who had found the most comfortable position to be one of  reclining, sat up after the fashion of a
  jumping jack. 
  "Doc Savage − up here?" he barked. 
  "Sure," grinned the bulb−nosed man. 
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  "How'd he happen to come?" Johnny demanded, forgetting his usual  large words. 
  "Came lookin' for Qui, reckon," said the other. 
  "Shut up, you blasted fool!" gritted another guard. "This mug don't  know what the Qui business is all about.
  Doc Savage has never heard of  it. Want to tip 'em off?" 
  AT THAT point, Kettler came stamping in, rage all over his doglike  face. He yanked the flaps of his muskrat
  cap loose as if to hear  himself better. 
  "We can't find out what that bronze guy done to the damn motor," he  growled. "Not a thing wrong with it.
  But it sure conked out on us, and  we can't get it started." 
  Johnny kept an expression of gloom on his gaunt features. He could  guess what had happened to the motor.
  The stuff which mixed with the  gasoline vapor would congeal on the walls of the carburetors, cylinders  and
  intake manifolds, and it would be several hours before the engine  would start, unless the affected parts were
  taken out and wiped  carefully. 
  "That was Doc Savage flyin' over after you landed, wasn't it?"  asked a man. "Sounded like he was lookin' for
  you." Kettler swore. He  kicked cold snow on Johnny, who hastily brushed the damp flakes off his  bare skin
  and wrapped himself protectingly in the blanket. 
  "We spread that white canvas tent over part of the plane, and  kicked snow over the rest," Kettler gritted.
  "That, and the fact it was  snowin', kept him from seem' us." 
  "An execrable circumstantiality," murmured Johnny. 
  "Another gob of them words and I'll cut your throat!" Kettler  screamed. 
  Johnny looked at the speaker, and was surprised to feel his spine  grow colder than the rest of his body, an
  occurrence which surprised  him infinitely. Kettler had meant it. 
  Satisfied with Johnny's sudden silence − if one did not consider  sporadic involuntary teeth chatterings −
  Kettler took several turns  stamping around the snow room. Breath came out of his nostrils in angry  snorts of
  steam. Suddenly he stopped in front of Johnny. 
  "You're an archy−archy − " 
  "An archaeologist," Johnny supplied. 
  "Yeah." Kettler glared. "That means you know all about old−time  things, don't I? And if you spring a big
  word answering me, I'll stomp  your brains into the snow." 
  "Yes," Johnny said. 
  "You know a lot of old−time languages, don't you?" 
  "Yes," said Johnny. 
  "Could you understand an old−time Viking if you heard him?" Kettler  demanded. 
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  "Yes." 
  "Could you talk to him?" Kettler growled. 
  "Yes." 
  "By gosh," exclaimed the bulb−nosed guard. "He spoke four little  words, one right after the other." 
  Johnny said nothing. He sat and shivered, thought about the Viking  business − and wondered how long it
  would actually be before he froze  stiff. 
  Kettler continued to stomp anxious circles in the snow. Some one  came in with a gasoline lantern, pumped it
  up and got it going after  some difficulty. The lantern gave off a little warmth. Johnny tried to  edge over to it,
  but Kettler kicked him away. 
  "As long as you're half frozen, you can't run out on us," he  growled. 
  Kettler consulted an old−fashioned silver turnip of a watch,  scowled, and took up his pacing again. 
  "The party we sent out oughta be back by now," he snapped angrily.  "And, damn it, they'd better have found
  that golden−haired dame." 
  Johnny had been thinking. Now he voiced a conclusion he had  reached. 
  "You men," he said, "were the bearded Vikings who were on the  dragon ship and captured that yacht in Long
  'Island Sound." 
  KETTLER STOPPED and assumed the expression of a man who had just  stepped in something nasty. 
  "So you knew that all the time!" he barked. 
  "No," Johnny corrected. "But I drew some conclusions from the fact  that the faces of all of you show you
  have recently shaven off heavy  beards. The Vikings had beards. They weren't really Vikings at all.  They were
  your crowd." 
  Kettler put his doglike face forward. 
  "And what else has that great brain of yours told you?" he  demanded. 
  "The golden−haired girl you are hunting now is the one who was on  the dragon ship," Johnny guessed aloud.
  "You captured that yacht  because it was faster, and you were in a hurry to get somewhere,  probably to get a
  plane. You got the plane and came up here, bringing  the girl. Then what happened? Did the man you killed
  let her escape?" 
  Kettler swore. 
  "He's a regular mind reader, Kettler," said the bulb−nosed man. 
  "What was the mysterious cargo you had on the dragon ship?" Johnny  asked. "The objects the people on the
  yacht heard you transferring  after you made them go below." 
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  Kettler roared, "For a plugged nickel I'd fix you." 
  A man put his head in from the tunnel. 
  "They got her, Kettler," he yelled. 
  Kettler underwent an amazing change. A smile wreathed his doglike  face, and. he seemed to grow two inches
  in height. He rubbed his veined  hands delightedly. 
  "Bring her nibs in here!" he directed. 
  Very shortly afterward, the golden−haired girl was shoved inside. 
  Johnny looked at her, widened his eyes and made a silent whistle of  amazed appreciation. This came, despite
  the fact that Johnny was about  as impervious to feminine charms as they came. The exaggerated  newspaper
  stories, growing out of the glimpse those on the yacht had  had of her aboard the Viking dragon ship, did not
  even do her justice. 
  She was not the tall, slim type. She was rather husky, in fact, but  her curves were entirely pleasing to the eye,
  and she had features that  were a pleasant relief from the doll−faced types popular in the motion  pictures at the
  moment. 
  Kettler executed a deep bow and said, "Welcome, my dear Ingra." 
  So Ingra was her name. Johnny reflected that it was fitting. She  was the kind of a Viking girl who must have
  mothered fellows like Eric  the Red. 
  The girl spoke. She spoke rapidly. Her tone indicated plainly she  was saying what she thought of Kettler, and
  it must be a low opinion  that she held. 
  The words! Johnny's mouth sagged open. She was speaking ancient  Viking! Johnny had never heard it
  before, except the few halting  efforts of students. But he had studied such records of it as existed.  He caught
  some of her words, even as rapidly as she spoke. 
  Kettler whirled on Johnny. 
  "Get on the job!" he gritted. "You are going to translate for us.  That's what we kept you alive for." 
  Johnny swallowed. He had already realized that. 
  "She is talking too rapidly," he said. "I cannot get all she says." 
  "Tell her to slow up!" Kettler rapped. "Then ask her questions." 
  "Ask her what?" Johnny countered. 
  "Ask her where Qui is," Kettler directed. 
  UNDER PRETENSE of rising from a sitting position, Johnny thought  rapidly. As he moved, his bound wrists
  hampered him, but for the moment  he did not notice. Kettler, of course, had no way of knowing Johnny
  would translate the girl's remarks correctly. But Kettler was taking  that chance. This meant he was getting
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  desperate. Then Johnny's bound  wrists suggested something. 
  "It will be more convenient if my wrists are untied," he said.  "Making gestures will help." 
  He neglected to mention what kind of gestures, or how he hoped they  would help. 
  Scowling blackly, Kettler untied the rope. 
  "Now, ask her," he directed. 
  Johnny racked his brains for old Norse words. Up until now, he had  considered himself an expert on the
  subject, but he suddenly realized  he was going to have trouble making himself understood at all. He
  addressed Ingra. 
  "These men want me to question you, after which they will probably  kill me," was the substance of Johnny's
  labors with the Viking tongue.  "If you have any ideas about how we may escape, please tell them to  me." 
  The girl spoke too rapidly and vehemently for Johnny to get it all.  The gist was that if she had had any ideas,
  she would have used them  herself before now. 
  "They are hunting Qui," Johnny labored, making some gestures. 
  At the word, "Qui," Kettler and his men showed great interest. 
  "I know that is what they seek," the girl said. Her voice was  pleasant, even if it was angry. 
  "What is Qui?" Johnny asked. "And where is it? I never heard of the  place. Or is it a place?" 
  The girl answered with a tirade, the substance of which was that  she saw no reason for telling Johnny
  anything, because Kettler would  get it out of him, willing or no, and be hanged if she would tell  anything. 
  "What's the girl jabberin'?" Kettler yelled. 
  "Shut up," Johnny said. "I'm trying to pump her." Telling Kettler  to shut up was an unthinking slip on
  Johnny's part, but the bony  archaeologist was angry, excited. 
  Kettler swung a fist and knocked Johnny down. He jumped over to add  a kick for good measure. 
  Johnny had wangled the freeing of his wrists in hopes of getting a  break. He took his break now, even if it
  was a long chance. He whipped  doubled, grabbed at Kettler's ankles, got them. 
  OUTWARDLY, JOHNNY looked only little less helpless than the wired  skeletons they keep in medical
  schools. But that was deceptive. 
  Gripping Kettler's ankles, Johnny stood erect. Kettler waved his  arms wildly, trying to keep upright. This was
  just what Johnny had  hoped for. 
  Johnny jammed Kettler's head and shoulders into the snow ceiling.  Kettler's waving arms helped. The entire
  ceiling of the snow room  suddenly came down. 
  Johnny racked his brain for the old Viking word for "run," but  could not think of it. 
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  "Vamoose!" he shrieked for Ingra's benefit. "Clear out! Beat it!" 
  Then he did his best to follow his own advice. First, however, he  dived accurately for the spot where his two
  blankets lay. This was no  country for a garb of red−flannel underwear alone. He got the blankets. 
  A gun went off in the snow. There was much cursing. 
  Johnny waded, flailed with his arms, seeking the open air. This, he  knew, must be a drift, probably behind a
  boulder. 
  Johnny choked on the snow. It was almost impossible to breathe. His  underwear was full of snow.
  Remarkably enough, though, he was warmer  than he had been for hours. 
  With shocking suddenness, Johnny encountered a man. The fellow hit  him. Johnny hit back. The man did not
  seem to have a gun. 
  The man tried to butt Johnny, and the gaunt geologist grabbed the  fellow's parka, and partly by accident,
  peeled the garment off the  wearer. He kept a grip on it. Johnny slugged furiously, and got the man  down. 
  Johnny dived − came out of the drift, almost unexpectedly. No foes  were in sight. They must have tried to
  crawl into the tunnel when they  had heard the uproar. Johnny could see their plane, camouflaged with  the
  white canvas tent and the snow. 
  No use trying to get away in it, he realized. It would take minutes  to clear it, to warm the motors, to turn it
  around. 
  Ingra came out of the drift. Almost simultaneously, Kettler  appeared, back to Johnny, not a yard distant.
  Johnny hit him behind the  ear before Kettler got snow out of his eyes. Kettler went down. 
  Johnny began wrenching madly at Kettler's moosehide moccasins. 
  "Fool!" shouted Ingra. "Flee!" 
  Johnny understood her Viking. It was a good suggestion. She was  already fleeing. He loped after her. 
  Chapter 11. DEATH FALL
  BOULDERS AND huge masses of stones were all about, along with some  scrubby bushes, many of which
  were buried in the soft snow. They were  very thorny bushes, Johnny's bare feet soon told him, and that
  reminded  him that his feet were already becoming numb. He should, he reflected,  have tarried for Kettler's
  moccasins. He was even tempted to go back. 
  A wild shouting from behind encouraged him to go on. Johnny's foes  were now out of the snow. He ran.
  Ingra was an agile young woman. He  had difficulty in overhauling her. 
  "Where will we head for?" Johnny demanded. 
  She seemed to be too busy running to answer. 
  Johnny attempted drawing on the captured parka as he sprinted, fell  headlong once, but managed. The
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  blankets would do for leggings and a  foot covering − if he ever got time to apply them to his extremities. 
  There was some shooting behind. Probably that was for effect. Then  there arose a human baying. The men
  were following their footprints in  the snow. 
  Johnny cast about desperately. The snow was everywhere, except for  a few bare rocks. 
  Ingra called something over her shoulder. Johnny did not get it and  demanded a repeat. 
  "We will separate," the young woman said more slowly in the Viking  tongue. "In that manner, maybe they
  will not catch us both." 
  Johnny resented the idea of a woman telling him what they should  do. Anyway, he did not want to lose track
  of Ingra. He wanted to ask  her many things, among which was how on earth she happened to speak  ancient
  Viking so fluently, and just what the mysterious Qui was. He  had enough of other questions, too, to fill up
  hours of interrogation. 
  "No," he said to her suggestion. 
  She promptly demonstrated that she was a young woman who would not  brook argument. To their right was
  a patch of the thorny bushes,  speckled with jagged rocks. She plunged into these. Her north country  garments
  − they were new and looked as if they had been purchased in  New York − protected her from the thorns. 
  Johnny tried to follow. He negotiated fifty feet, and practically  no skin remained on his bony shanks. Rags of
  red underwear dotted the  bushes behind. He would never make it. 
  Johnny backed out, and of necessity, took up his flight in the  opposite direction. When he looked back, Ingra
  had vanished. 
  He ran furiously, for only violent motion would keep him from  freezing. He heard shouting behind. The
  pursuers apparently delayed  briefly, arguing, then split in two bands, one following each fugitive. 
  A rocky stretch bare of snow shortly answered Johnny's prayers, and  he altered his course on this, after which
  he believed he had gained a  few minutes. 
  He paused, tore up one blanket and bound his feet. Then he ran on.  The improvised footgear, barring the
  necessity of retying at intervals,  was not bad. 
  Kettler's men were still following him. He could hear their angry  shouts. Once, they shot at him when he
  topped a ridge. 
  Granting that the wind had not changed direction, Johnny decided he  was headed north. His plane had been
  wrecked far to the south. No need  of going back there. Later, perhaps, he could do so, and employ the
  wreckage to make skils or snowshoes. The thing now was to outstrip his  pursuers. 
  He settled to a long−legged, distance−eating run. 
  JOHNNY'S YOUTH had been scholastic, but he had found time for  athletics, and his specialty had been
  distance running. He had never  set any world records, but that was possibly because he had never taken  the
  time out for the intensive training necessary. On an occasion or  two, however, he had delivered some
  surprising upsets in track meets. 
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  Unlike most college athletes, Johnny was now in better condition  than during his scholastic days; some freak
  in his make−up − Doc Savage  had diagnosed it as an unusual glandular condition − had endowed him  with
  muscles that were more like violin strings than those an ordinary  man would have. The bony archaelogist's
  endurance was fabulous. 
  He was going to need all he had. The men behind were fresh, but  what was worse, from the way they held
  their own, they must be wearing  snowshoes. Johnny's extremely long legs were a help in the snow, but  they
  did not overcome the snowshoe advantage. 
  The nearness of his pursuers drove him to more and more frantic  efforts. His position was almost hopeless.
  Doc Savage was somewhere  about, from what Kettler's men had said, but the chance of attracting  the bronze
  man's attention was not even worth trying. It was still  snowing. A signal could not be seen at any distance. 
  A faint roaring reached Johnny's ears. He stopped, listening,  straining. He thought, hoped, it was a plane −
  Doc's ship. But no. It  was the sea, waves breaking on an icy shore. Three or four miles  distant, he concluded. 
  Johnny ran on. The fact that he could hear waves did not surprise  him. Tidal currents were reputedly terrific
  off these shores, and  portions of the sea never froze. 
  A bullet climbed, whining, off a stone near by. A moment later the  crash of the rifle firing it arrived. 
  Johnny observed a defile, a rounded gully, to the left. The wind  seemed to sweep straight up it, and it was as
  free of snow as the rest  of the country. Johnny loped into it. The going − he thanked his stars  − was easier. He
  put on more speed. He slithered, time and again,  almost fell, for the terrific exertion was making him a little
  blind.  The cold was helping, too. 
  Snow had melted in his red−flannel underwear, and he knew the  garment would eventually freeze. Once clear
  − and he began to hold a  horrible doubt that he would get clear − he would have to get the  underwear off. He
  still carried the other blanket. That would help. 
  Another bullet searched for him. Johnny doubled low. The gully  seemed to turn ahead. If he could but reach
  that angle. He looked back,  to see how close pursuit was. He was running in shallow snow. 
  Suddenly, horribly, Johnny was running in mid−air. 
  THERE IS in the human category of experiences nothing quite so  shocking as to have solidness drop abruptly
  from underfoot. 
  Johnny fanned his arms, tried to turn in the air like a cat and  grab solid rock. He knew he had run into some
  kind of a crevasse which  had been bridged over by snow. 
  He knew, too, that he was lost, and it was numbing, but no great  surprise, when his fingers failed to reach a
  hold and he plummeted down  into a grisly infinity that was made gray and hideous by the snow that  fell with
  him, and awful to the ear because there came faintly the  shouts of men who wanted to kill him. 
  Kettler's men had been close. They had seen him fall. They had  taken off their snowshoes, were carrying
  them as they ran. 
  The bulb−nosed man was in charge of the pursuit detail. 
  "Careful!" he warned. "The bag of bones fell into a crack of some  kind." 
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  The men slowed their pace. The respite was welcome. All were  drinking in air with frenzied gulps, and the
  cold stuff burned their  lungs like fire. 
  Nearer the crevasse, they went even more gingerly. Two of them,  exhausted completely, lay down where they
  were and rolled in agony,  hands clamped over mouths and nostrils to shut out the air which they  must have,
  yet which was so cold it was almost impossible to breathe. 
  They linked hands together, the bulb−nosed man foremost, and edged  to the crevasse. It was a canyon into
  which the gully emptied, they  could see. Nor was it so very narrow. 
  The bulb−nosed man looked down. Below, snow eddied like smoke. His  eyes could not penetrate it. 
  "One of you guys got a flashlight?" he demanded. 
  None of them had. They argued, swore, and rested. The snow haze  settled. Then it was too gloomy to see the
  bottom. They solved that  problem when one of them produced a fistful of letters, complained  loudly that they
  were from his best girl friend, and therefore more  valuable than gems, and surrendered them. 
  The bulb−nosed man struck matches. The wind gave him trouble. But  finally he got a wad of the letters
  burning, and dropped it into the  chasm. There was a considerable draft coming up from the stone rent,  and
  this tossed the makeshift torch about, but finally it sank low  enough to disclose what they had expressed
  themselves profanely as  hoping to see. 
  Johnny's purloined parka projected out of the fallen snow, hunched  grotesquely, as if the body within were
  twisted and broken. 
  Suddenly, before the letters burned themselves out, the bulb−nosed  man whipped up his rifle. It was a
  big−game automatic. He emptied it  into the still form below, and the roar of the shots thundered weirdly  in
  the recesses of the crevasse. 
  The bulb−nosed man drew back, moistening his lips, not looking  particularly glad over what he had done. 
  "That," he said hoarsely, "fixes that guy." 
  He led the others back up the gully as if he wanted to quit the  vicinity in a hurry. 
  "I hope that Doc Savage don't make us any more trouble than this  guy," he muttered. 
  Chapter 12. A FIND AND A LOSS
  DOC SAVAGE was at that moment planning trouble. The bronze man was  at the controls of Thorpe Carleth's
  plane, and in the cabin were  Carleth, the perfect Peabody, Renny, Monk, and Ham − and Habeas Corpus.
  Savage had picked out a spot suitable for a landing. It was some two  miles from the level space where
  Johnny's wrecked plane lay. 
  Doc landed. Carleth and Peabody did not look so worried over this  landing, although it was as difficult as the
  one back at the other  clearing. 
  The big motors lipped flame and noise as Doc gunned the ship in  close to a drift, then up the sloping side of
  the drift until it  collapsed, and the ship was all but half buried. With superb judgment,  Doc cut the motors just
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  as the snow crust gave, saving the propellers. 
  "How shall we get out of here?" Carleth wailed, trying to keep his  glasses on his nose. 
  "Dig out," Doc told him. "It will not be difficult." 
  The bronze man stepped out, gave orders, and they got snowshoes out  of the cabin. These served as snow
  shovels, and they began banking and  covering the plane. 
  "I have a hunch this is what that other crowd did," Doc said. "That  would explain why their plane could not
  be located." 
  Carleth got his glasses to stick. "What are you going to do?" 
  The bronze man did not answer that directly. 
  "You fellows will remain here," he suggested. "We do not want to  take chances of losing this ship." 
  "It would not," Carleth agreed fervently, "be pleasant to be  marooned up here." 
  Doc Savage made up a small pack consisting of a silken air−tight  sleeping bag which rolled into a pack no
  larger than Renny's fist, and  which could be kept warm by a tiny fireless chemical heater which was  situated
  in a bag in the foot, and which was put in operation by  filling the bag with water − snow would do − then
  pouring in a spoonful  of a chemical which was contained in a flask. 
  Doc also took a box containing a number of small cakes of stuff  resembling candy, cakes which were really
  concentrated food that could  be prepared by mixing with water, or in an emergency, taken without
  preparation. 
  The bronze man added to the pack such chemicals and gadgets as he  believed might be convenient. Monk's
  chemical laboratory, he had  discovered, was not greatly damaged. 
  One piece of equipment which another would certainly not have  neglected, Doc Savage did not carry. He
  took no gun. This was in  keeping with a policy which he had long ago formulated, that of having  nothing to
  do with firearms. For this he had a reason, the thorough  conviction that one who comes to depend upon a gun
  is the more helpless  then without the weapon. 
  Without saying where he was bound, or what he intended to do, Doc  Savage struck out over the snow. He
  handled the snowshoes with the  precise ease that comes of careful practice devoted solely to learning  how to
  do a thing, coupled with the advice of experts. 
  Doc's skill in almost all lines, which seemed amazing, was in the  last analysis simply explained − when he
  wanted to master a thing, he  went to those who were already masters of the subject, and learned from  them. 
  Unexpectedly, it stopped snowing. The clouds were still matted  above, but they no longer leaked flakes. The
  wind, too, dropped until  it was scarcely perceptible, and in the calm that followed, the myriad  noises of the
  northland, previously unnoticeable, became apparent −  rocks which occasionally cracked from the awful
  cold, twigs  complaining, the sandy crunch of dry snow under the snowshoe webs. The  boom of the sea was
  audible now, as well. 
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  Doc Savage was alert, using eyes, ears. Not much missed him. He was  crossing a particularly rocky region
  when he halted abruptly. His eyes  were fixed on a drift a score of yards distant. 
  Plumes of steam, so faint as to be virtually nonexistent, arose at  intervals from the drift. Breath steam,
  undoubtedly. 
  DOC SAVAGE advanced warily. Something was under the snow, breathing  through a small hole in the
  flakes. The hole might be for listening  purposes as well. It might be an animal in the drift. 
  Doc Savage freed a small rock from an icy anchorage, hefted it at  the drift. It sank into the snow not six
  inches from the hole. The  breath steam stopped coming. 
  "You might as well show yourself," Doc Savage said quietly. 
  No response. 
  The bronze man listened. Sounds were faint, but he could hear them.  Whatever was in the drift was working
  deeper into the snow. 
  Doc lunged forward. He was cautious. He had no ambition to kick a  bear in the ribs. 
  "Come out of that!" he snapped. 
  A form − human − popped out of the drift, ran madly. At first, it  appeared to be a man. Doc pursued. The
  instant be caught the fugitive,  he discovered it was a young woman with remarkable golden hair. 
  She was no clinging vine. She sent a fist at him. He parried it,  caught her wrists. She jumped up and slammed
  both moccasined feet to  his chest. But even a professional wrestler could hardly have downed  him that way. 
  Doc laughed. He released her. The laugh was not because there was  anything funny. It was to reassure the
  young woman. 
  Once loose, she ran a few feet, turned her head, saw he was not  following, and stopped. She said something.
  Doc Savage recognized the  words as old Viking, but her rapid breathing made the syllables  unintelligible. 
  Doc Savage put his right hand against his chest. 
  "Doc Savage," he said. 
  That did not seem to mean the slightest thing to her. 
  Doc Savage watched her, and there were vague eddies in his  flake−gold eyes. 
  No small part of his remarkable training had been devoted to  languages, ancient and modern, and he probably
  knew more about tongues  long since lost in history than did gaunt Johnny, who made that sort of  thing his
  profession. 
  He assembled words of Viking, and was foresighted enough to repeat  them under his breath, to accustom his
  tongue to the strange syllables. 
  "You can see that I have no designs upon you," Doc said in Viking.  "Will you talk to me?" 
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  The girl started. 
  "You look much as my forefathers must have looked," she said. "You  are from across the sea?" 
  Doc presumed she must mean the home of the ancient Vikings in  northern Europe. He could understand her
  fairly well. 
  "No," Doc said. 
  She looked puzzled. "But you cannot be one of those slaves of the  Qui who escaped. I have seen them all." 
  "Who," the bronze man queried quietly, "are you?" 
  "I am Ingra," she said. "I am one of the slaves of the Qui." 
  SHE DID not call it "slave," but a combination of Viking  terminology meaning one who is forced to row at
  the sweeps of dragon  ships and do menial tasks, which meant the same thing. 
  "The escaping slaves took me from Qui on the dragon ship which they  stole from the sacred shrine of the
  Qui,," the girl Ingra went on  abruptly. "I did not want to go. They took me against my will. I did  not know
  why, then, but  I have since learned. I have the knowledge of  my ancestors, the knowledge of how to tell the
  whereabouts of a place  by the position of the stars. I knew where Qui was in relation to the  position of the
  stars, and I could guide them back." 
  She was talking about astronomical navigation, Doc knew, some  knowledge of the science which had been
  handed down from the past. 
  Ancient navigators had been able to read their position from the  stars, at an earlier age than most persons,
  convinced all scientific  learning was of a recent date, would have guessed. Some ancient Vikings  might have
  known it. Doc was not sure. The old freebooters had made  some remarkable voyages in their dragon ships. 
  Ingra was still talking. 
  "The men, the slaves of Qui, who escaped in the dragon ship from  the shrine, wanted to get their modern
  weapons from your strange world  and come back," she said. "They desired to take things from Qui." 
  Doc became slightly tense. Not because he was learning things that  tended to solve the mystery. He had heard
  a sound, a plane. The motor  noise was coming up out of the south. He groped for Viking words, found  them. 
  "Quick!" he rasped. "We had better get out of sight." 
  They moved swiftly, running for the drift. And possibly that was  their mistake. Moving objects are easily
  seen. The other plane was  closer than it had seemed. It popped up over a near−by ridge. Those  aboard must
  have been keeping an alert watch. 
  The plane veered toward Doc and the girl, just as they dived into  the drift. It moaned overhead, very low. It
  turned, came back. Time and  again, it passed. 
  There was no spot near by suitable for a landing. 
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  DOC POKED a hole in the snow, a hole small enough that it could not  be seen from above, and studied the
  plane. He had never seen the ship  before. It was a big trimotored biplane, capable of carrying almost a  score
  of passengers, and it looked like an old job gotten second−hand  from some air line. It bore the United States
  markings. 
  There was no way of telling whether those aboard were friends. 
  Doc decided to test. He stepped out of the snow, and shucked back  the hood of the parka so that his features
  showed plainly. 
  Results amply demonstrated what he wanted to know. 
  Men in the plane above all but fell overboard in their haste to get  guns out of the windows. When he saw the
  first rifle barrel appear, Doc  Savage whipped for shelter. 
  Bullets thumped around him. He got into the snow, burrowed, changed  this course, and snuggled under a
  boulder. There, he could only be hit  from one direction, and the men in the plane, not knowing where he was,
  were not likely to get the correct angle. 
  The plane moaned above, its exhaust syncopation punctuated with gun  sound. The lead accomplished
  nothing. The plane went away. 
  Doc Savage shoved out of the drift hastily. He glanced tip. He had  guessed correctly. Two parachutes were
  lowering men who had leaped from  the other plane. 
  "Stay here," the bronze man shouted in Viking. 
  "Very well," the girl agreed from under the snow. 
  Doc ran toward the spots where the parachutes would drop. They were  big, slow lobes of silk. But it was
  impossible to travel swiftly  through the snow. 
  He saw he would not be able to reach a position near the parachutes  before the men harnessed in them were
  down. 
  THE BIG, shabby biplane came storming back, but Doc was among high  boulders, and paid it little attention,
  beyond dodging and favoring  shelter. 
  One parachute came down on a spot where stones were huge and  rugged. The man in the harness took a nasty
  fall, lost the rifle which  he was carrying, and Doc made for him. 
  The other parachute was higher. The occupant began shooting from  the air. His marksmanship was
  hair−raising. Doc heard that peculiar  popping noise which a high−velocity bullet makes close to an ear. He
  slapped behind a rock ledge. 
  The plane came back, men in it shooting. Doc was forced to change  position. The man in the parachute shot
  at him again. The fellow who  had fallen recovered and began firing. 
  Doc began to need all the eyes with which a fly is equipped. He  settled himself in the most convenient
  shelter, half buried in the snow  that filled a crack in the rock, and explored his clothing. 
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  Over his light, strong chain mail undershirt, Doc wore a vest which  consisted almost entirely of pockets that
  held containers designed for  flatness, so that they fitted into the pockets without special bulk. He  extracted
  one of these, twisted off the lid, and it instantly began  pouring out a dense, thick black smoke. 
  He tossed the smoke bomb behind him. The black cloud it poured out  was prodigious. Monk had spent
  months perfecting that particular  chemical concoction. The pall covered Doc, hid him, and went on to
  envelop the other two who had come down in their parachutes. 
  Doc reared up and started through the black smudge. Three paces,  and he stopped. 
  He could hear shouting. It was off to the left quite a distance. 
  Doc Savage had no way of knowing he was listening to the party of  Kettler's men who had been hunting the
  strange girl, Ingra, and who had  been drawn by the uproar. But he did guess that they were new foes. 
  The bronze man continued with the job at hand. He located one of  the parachuters, crept upon the fellow and
  had the man by the neck  before the fellow dreamed that he was in imminent danger. 
  The man tried to use his rifle. Instead of twisting it out of his  hand, Doc simply exerted sudden, terrific
  pressure on certain  vulnerable spinal nerve centers. The victim let his gun go, went limp.  Doc dropped him.
  The pressure had the same effect, generally, as a  knockout blow, and it would be some time before the fellow
  aroused. 
  The distant new arrivals were still shouting. And now they began  shooting. Doc caught some of their words. 
  "There's the girl!" one of them was bawling. 
  Ingra, the remarkable young woman who spoke old Viking must have  ventured from concealment, and been
  discovered. 
  A MOMENT later, Doc heard the young woman shrieking. The plane  whooped, moaned above. Some one in
  it was using a machine gun which  jammed frequently. 
  Doc violated a principle of never using firearms. The plane above  was the big handicap. He scooped up the
  rifle of the man he had just  overcome and ran out of the smoke pall. 
  The other fellow who had come down by parachute had been canny  enough to get out of the smoke also. He
  saw Doc, lifted his rifle. 
  The bronze man snapped a shot. An onlooker would have sworn he  could not possibly have aimed. But the
  man with the rifle let out a  squawk and tried to stand on one leg. The bullet had shattered the bone  in the
  other. He soon fell down. 
  Doc got behind a rock and waited for the plane to come back. He  aimed with great care. Twice, he seemed on
  the point of firing, only to  be dissatisfied with his aim. He fired one shot. 
  The starboard motor of the plane stopped. 
  There must have been consternation on the ship. A landing here  would be suicide. The craft limped away,
  two motors keeping it up, but  not much more. 
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  DOC SAVAGE ran toward the spot where Ingra had been left. Coming in  sight of her, he saw that she had
  been taken by the other raiding  party. Three of them were holding her. The others saw Doc, and began
  shooting. 
  Doc drifted back, that being the only sane thing to do. They  pursued him, but warily, obviously afraid of him,
  but intent on  killing. 
  Off to the east, the crippled plane was coming down, level snow  evidently having been discovered. Doc
  listened for the results of their  descent. Bloopings of the motors, undoubtedly as the craft taxied in  the snow,
  told him they were down safely. 
  Unexpectedly, those pursuing Doc veered over toward where the ship  had landed. They went swiftly, and
  were well on their way before the  bronze man comprehended their intention to join those in the plane. 
  Doc made a barren effort to cut them off. But the distance was too  great. They reached the other ship well
  ahead of him. 
  The craft had been idling with its two motors, but now the third  broke out noisily. They must have found the
  wiring which the bronze  man's bullet had cut − he had done some careful calculating on that  shot − and had
  repaired it. 
  The plane took the air before he was near enough to do anything  toward preventing it. 
  Doc promptly took shelter in a snowdrift, with a peephole at hand  and the rifle ready. 
  But the plane − all the men and the girl must have loaded aboard −  did not take chances. They made two or
  three halfhearted circles of the  vicinity, saw no one, did not get close enough for Doc to use the  rifle, then
  angled off to the north. They evidently had a healthy  respect for the rifle. And they seemed to have something
  else on their  collective minds. 
  Doc Savage got out of the snow and hurried toward the spot where he  had left his aides, Monk and the others. 
  Chapter 13. "HE'D MAKE A SWELL VALET!"
  MONK WAS excited. He had his bullet of a head out of the snowdrift  beside the plane, where they were
  hidden. A cupped hand back of a  scarred ear endeavored to catch the sounds of the distant plane, which  had
  departed. 
  They had heard, far away, the fighting. 
  Monk floundered out of the drift. 
  "Danged if I stick here any longer," he growled. "Something's  happened to Doc. I'm goin' over there and pick
  up the pieces or  something." 
  Ham said, "Try not to be the numskull nature made you!" 
  Sarcasm did not conceal the anxiety in Ham's voice. 
  Monk scowled and routed Carleth and Peabody out of the snow. "What  do you birds think about going over
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  there?" 
  Peabody looked at Carleth and said, "My wishes are yours, sir." 
  Carleth shivered. He seemed to have acquired a dislike for the  whole thing. 
  "My wishes are that we were back in New York," he muttered. "But  since that is out of the question, I believe
  we should see what has  happened to Doc Savage." 
  Monk told Ham, "You're outnumbered, shyster." 
  Ham shrugged. "We were told to stay here. But let's go." 
  They buckled on snowshoes. Monk, Ham and Renny could use them,  having learned in the past. But Carleth
  and Peabody proved to be  aggravating dubs. They dug the toes of their webs in, and fell down on  an average
  of once every fifty feet. 
  Carleth was profane, peevish about it. But Peabody was composed,  accepting things as they were. 
  Ham, walking ahead with Monk, voiced an opinion. 
  "That Peabody would make me a superb valet," he said. "When this is  all over, I'm going to offer him more
  money than Carleth is paying." 
  "That trick is about your caliber," Monk said sourly. 
  They began to quarrel, perhaps in part to take their minds off  thoughts of what might have happened to Doc.
  The squabbling went on  until it was interrupted by a startled outcry from behind. 
  They whirled. Peabody stood a few yards back, panting, working with  a snowshoe strap. Renny and Carleth
  were not in sight. 
  "What's wrong?" Monk demanded. 
  Peabody gasped, "I think Renny is helping Carleth. The master fell,  or something." 
  Monk and Ham walked past Peabody, going back. Monk came in sight of  Renny and Carleth. He exploded a
  gasp. 
  Renny was lying prone. Carleth stood over him. In Carleth's hands  was a rock, with which he had obviously
  just struck Renny down,  probably as the latter endeavored to assist him. 
  A cry, a thump, sounded behind Monk. He spun. 
  Ham was down, patently senseless. 
  Peabody stood over the prone lawyer. A big, heavy automatic was in  each of Peabody's hands. 
  "You will stand damn still," Peabody stated. 
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  The two guns looked big and ugly enough to hold Monk still,  wordless. Peabody came up to him. He jabbed
  one gun into Monk's  stomach. He swung the other to Monk's head. 
  The homely chemist had an impression of diving into snow that was a  thousand miles deep. 
  MONK CAME out of it with a roaring in his ears, the roaring of  their plane motor. He was lying in the cabin,
  and he was bound tighter  than he believed he had ever been bound before. It was a lot of trouble  to roll over. 
  Ham was conscious. He glared at Monk. 
  "So Peabody would make a good valet," Monk sneered. 
  "Oh, shut up," Ham said. "I wonder if Doc suspected them?" 
  "Don't talk to me," Monk growled. "My head aches. Why didn't they  kill us?" 
  "I don't know," Renny snapped from behind Monk. "Chicken−hearted, I  guess." 
  Peabody came back, scowling, and kicked Monk several times as if he  enjoyed it. 
  "Chicken−hearted, eh?" he snarled. "Why, you damn fools, we're  going to kill you. Carleth and myself don't
  do work like that. We have  hired men for it." 
  "And you're taking us to the hired men?" Renny boomed. 
  "Exactly," Peabody said, and added, sarcastically, "sir." 
  "Where did you learn to be a valet?" Ham asked abruptly. 
  Peabody spat. 
  "I was once a very rich man," he said. "I had two valets, three  chauffeurs and thirty−six other servants at my
  town and country places.  I have been valeted enough to know how to valet." 
  "I think you're lying," said Ham. 
  "I am not," said Peabody, as if it were a point of honor with him  to convince the dapper Ham he was not valet
  caliber. "Why, at one time,  I had − " 
  "That man is pumping you," shouted Carleth, who was flying the  plane. 
  "Dry up," Peabody snapped, then added for Ham's benefit, "Carleth  has worked for me for years. People
  think he's a millionaire playboy  with an air line, but hell, he's just one of my flunkies. Ain't you,  Carleth?" 
  "You don't need to rub it in!" Carleth clipped. 
  "Carleth's air line don't belong to Carleth," Peabody said  gloatingly. "It belongs to me. I own a lot of other
  guys, too. I'm a  big shot, still, even if I been having my troubles like everybody  else." 
  "Just what is your profession?" Ham demanded curiously. 
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  "Smuggler and rum runner," said Peabody. 
  "Now tell me what this is all about," Ham requested. 
  "Nerts to you," said Peabody. 
  Peabody leaned very close to Ham's face, glaring with exaggerated,  yet very real ferocity. He seemed to have
  a particular hate for Ham. 
  "Gonna gimme a job as your valet, huh!" he snarled, and slapped Ham  as hard as he could. 
  Then he went back and sat down. 
  Monk squinted and saw Ham had not been knocked entirely senseless  by the blow, but only dizzy, after
  which Monk rolled his small eyes and  added insult to injury. 
  "I wish you did have a valet with manners like that," he said. 
  CARLETH SPENT some time looking down out of the cockpit window,  then angled the plane over, and it
  tilted steeply and centrifugal pull  told them the craft was spiraling down sharply. Once they even got a
  glimpse of a misplaced earth through one of the cabin windows. 
  The ship landed. It was a very bumpy landing which scared Monk,  Renny and Ham badly, and caused
  Peabody to curse Carleth. 
  Peabody got out and yelled, "Kettler! You old bucket of sin! How do  things stack up?" 
  There was much conversation, which the three prisoners in the plane  could not quite overhear, and numerous
  men came up to the ship, looked  inside, and made insulting remarks to the captives. 
  Monk, listening carefully, overheard enough casual remarks to tell  him several things, namely: 
  Kettler was the leader of the party they had joined, but he was  working under Peabody's orders. Kettler had, it
  seemed, once been a  captain of a smuggling ship operated by Peabody. 
  Kettler's plane was here, where it had been hidden after escaping  from its unsuccessful attack on Doc's ship. 
  A second plane − the old biplane which had attacked Doc − had just  arrived from New York, bearing more
  members of the gang. 
  The biplane also had carried something else which had an important  connection with Qui. Monk did not catch
  what it was. 
  The girl, Ingra was here. They were trying to make her direct them  to Qui − Monk was still straining his ears
  for information when several  men came, seized him, along with Ham and Renny, and hauled them out of  the
  plane cabin. 
  Monk looked at the biplane, hoping to see what its mysterious  unidentified cargo was. Numerous men were
  standing around the ship,  looking in the cabin windows. They reminded Monk of spectators at a  sideshow. 
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  Before he got any information, Monk and those with him were hauled  over to Kettler's big plane − the ship
  which Carleth had insisted had  been stolen from him. 
  Kettler, Peabody and Carleth were there, alternately shouting  "Qui!" at a very attractive young golden−haired
  woman. They also made  fierce faces, pinched her cruelly, and twisted her arms. In the course  of this, the
  three men had collected a few bruises which Ingra had  managed to inflict. 
  Peabody scowled at Ham. 
  "Valet material am I!" he gritted. "Well, let's see what you think  in a minute." 
  "What are you going to do?" Ham demanded anxiously. 
  "This damn girl won't do what we want," said Peabody. "So we're  gonna cut your throat and let you bleed on
  her feet or something to  kinda remind her we mean business." 
  Ham blinked, swallowed. Peabody was utterly serious about it. 
  Peabody called one of his men and demanded the loan of a knife. Ham  noted that the blade was one of the
  Viking weapons which had cropped up  so mysteriously in New York. 
  That reminded Ham that the mystery attacks in New York never had  been explained satisfactorily. But he did
  not devote that angle much  thought. Peabody had come up to him and had made a preparatory flourish  with
  the knife to get Ingra's eye. 
  The young woman realized what he was about to do. She, to Ham's  everlasting thankfulness, did not hesitate.
  She shrieked a  conglomeration of words in Viking. 
  No one present understood her. But her meaning was plain. "She's  gonna take us to Qui!" Peabody barked.
  Peabody glowered, fingered his  knife, seeming happy and at the same time disappointed. 
  "Reckon I gotta keep you and your two pals around until this dame  does her stuff," he said. "But buddy, after
  that I'll do you up like no  valet you never saw." 
  THE THREE prisoners were hauled back to the plane, along with the  girl, and loaded inside. There was much
  turmoil. Plane motors howled,  stirring up choking clouds of snow. All three ships were going to take  the air. 
  There was some parceling out of rifles and ammunition, particularly  ammunition. 
  Watching the preparations, Monk gathered that these men  contemplated a fight. From their numbers and the
  quantity of arms, they  must expect the fray to amount to a battle. 
  Try as he would, Monk could not see what was in the old biplane  which had moved men to gather around and
  stare. 
  The ships took the air amid terrific straining of motors and  shouted profane advice between the pilot and his
  passengers. Peabody,  Ingra and some others were with Monk and his two companions. Carleth  was flying. 
  Peabody shouted, "We might as well look for that Doc Savage a  little, before we go to Qui." 
  The plane headed south, taking swings of two or three miles to each  side. 
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  "I think I saw him over there!" a man shouted and pointed. 
  The plane angled over sharply. It came down close to earth.  Everyone but the prisoners used field glasses.
  Results were nil. 
  "Musta been mistaken," said the man who had shouted discovery. 
  "We'll give it up," Peabody growled. "Head north, while I start  this dame doin' her stuff." 
  The three ships trailed each other noisily through a sky that was  leaden, in the direction of Qui. 
  Chapter 14. QUI
  DOC SAVAGE came out of the snow after the planes had gone − for it  was the bronze man whom they had
  seen, and he had taken shelter − and  standing in the snow, Doc stared into the north, listening to the final
  diminishing of sound which the bevy of motors had made and left. 
  It was getting dark, and the borealis was prominent, making  somewhat weird patterns as seen through the fine
  snow, which was  coming, not from the sky, but from a small breeze which had arisen and  was kicking it up. 
  Doc shifted position. The squall of his snowshoes in the cold−dry  snow was almost frightening. The fantastic
  vastness of the snow country  seemed to press in like a gobbling monster. 
  The bronze man snowshoed north. He had been back, already, to where  he had left Monk and the others, and
  had found them and the plane gone.  He had found one other thing, too. 
  "Habeas," Doc called. 
  The grotesque pig came out of a drift, where he had taken shelter  after the fashion of sled dogs. The little
  porker's appearance was made  more incredible, if that was really possible, by the fur jacket affair  with which
  Monk had equipped him, and a part of which Habeas had  already eaten. Habeas had some of the manners of a
  goat in the matter  of diet. 
  Doc had seen the three planes take the air. He made for the spot of  their take−off, apprehensive of what he
  might find. 
  It took him three hours to reach the camp. He searched for bodies,  and there were none. 
  Mushing a hundred yards from the deserted camp, Doc began a circle  of the spot. He found tracks, for the
  snow had no more than half filled  them. He located where Johnny and the girl had fled. He came to the  spot
  where the girl had separated her trail from Johnny's. 
  Doc knew what had happened to the girl. So he set out on Johnny's  trail. 
  The chasm into which Johnny had fallen was dark, ominous, when he  came to it. He used a pocket flashlight
  which was small, but gave a  strong, thin white beam. He rested the light for a long time on the
  bullet−perforated parka visible in the fallen snow. 
  Doc studied the icy surface around the crack edge. It was  treacherous, the cracks filled with ice which had
  doubtless come from  some sunshiny day. He used a knife to gouge ice out of a crack, then  wedged his
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  grapple, the one with the silken cord attached, therein. 
  Habeas, the pig, stood well back and grunted uneasily as the bronze  man went down the thin cord. His bronze
  hands were ungloved, but they  seemed stiffened not at all by the intense cold. 
  Reaching the bottom, Doc went at once to the parka, picked it up,  and shook out the snow which had been
  stuffed inside the fur garment. 
  Johnny was not there. Soft snow that padded the bottom of the  canyon to a considerable depth had cushioned
  his fall, no doubt, and he  had used this snow−in−the−parka ruse to fool his pursuers. 
  "Johnny!" Doc called. 
  There was no answer. 
  A SCRATCHING and frantic squealing above wrenched Doc's gaze  upward, but it was only Habeas, the pig,
  who had come investigating and  had slipped over the edge. He came sailing down, and Doc did not even
  bother to catch him, because the snow was very soft. The pig climbed  out, grunting. 
  Doc Savage used his flashlight and worked up the canyon. He saw  enough to tell him that Johnny had not
  gone in that direction. Doc  turned back and went down. 
  The canyon, very narrow, extremely deep, was by no means entirely  bridged over by snow. It was just in the
  narrow places that the drifts  had built out until they had formed a complete arch. 
  Where the crack was arched over, however, the darkness was intense.  Once, Doc Savage disturbed a mass of
  snow, and the whole arch came  down, hundreds of pounds of it, but light, flaky stuff which did no  more
  damage than to bury them. Doc got himself out, and excavated for  Habeas. 
  Johnny had gone this way. The gaunt archaeologist's tracks showed  at times. 
  The canyon widened. The sides remained steep, seldom less than  straight up and down. There had been no
  point at which Johnny could  have left it. 
  Doc Savage came to a spot where the canyon bed dropped suddenly for  at least thirty feet. No doubt during
  the season when the snow melted,  the spot was a waterfall of some consequence. 
  Johnny, his marks indicated, had dropped a rock or two to see how  deep the snow was below, then had
  jumped. Doc tossed Habeas down, then  followed himself. 
  The canyon abruptly ended, and the bronze man found himself in  level country, where there was quite a bit of
  stunted shrubbery and  some trees. 
  He glanced backward, then to the right and left, and observed a  rather remarkable fact. In descending the
  canyon, he had penetrated  down through a line of cliffs. 
  Ages ago, the sea must have beaten here and worn a line of cliffs,  after which some convulsion of earth
  forces had lifted the coast line,  leaving the cliffs, a sheer, unscalable wall, almost, high and dry. 
  The throb and roll of the sea was stronger now. Too, there was the  faint tang of salt air. Doc judged the ocean
  to be no more than a mile  ahead. 
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  Johnny's tracks − almost lost in the snow − indicated he had  started running again. Probably that meant he
  was trying to keep off  the bitter cold. He was heading west, and in that direction Doc could  see larger trees
  and a number of rocky peaks which seemed to be  surrounded by masses of boulders. No doubt Johnny was
  visioning shelter  from the elements when he headed for that point. Doc Savage gathered up  the pig, Habeas,
  and quickened his pace. 
  He worked through brush, came out on the south slope of a hill −  and was suddenly face to face with the last
  thing he had expected to  see. 
  A cultivated field! Nothing, of course, was growing now, but the  marks of agricultural efforts were evident. It
  was a crude kind of  farming, however. The earth must have been spaded instead of plowed. 
  Farther on, there were trees of a variety not often seen this far  north. Doc inspected them. New England
  maples, of the type from which  is drawn the sap for maple syrup. In New England, they would not have  been
  considered much as maple trees, being stunted and gnarled. But  they were maples. More surprisingly, the
  trunks bore marks indicating  they had been tapped. 
  There were a few other trees of a hardy fruiting variety grown in  Canada and the northern United States, and
  some berry bushes, obviously  cultivated. 
  Doc Savage made his small trilling sound as he considered all of  this. The Canadian Indians did not go in for
  this sort of thing.  Eskimos certainly did not. 
  Moreover, there was no record of civilization on this coast. 
  IT WAS also true that this part of the coast had never been  explored thoroughly for the simple but adequate
  reason that there was  nothing to indicate the region held anything to make it worth  exploring. British
  Admiralty expeditions had, of course, charted the  coast generally. But the shore could have held a great deal
  that they  missed. Apparently, it did. 
  Doc advanced through the cultivated section, topped the hill, and  was no little surprised to discover himself
  standing on the shore of a  small bay. The entrance to this was narrow, and had the shape of a  letter "S." 
  Doc frowned at the ocean, which was plentifully sprinkled with ice  cakes. From out there, it would be almost
  impossible to discover the  bay entrance. Not, of course, if a ship came in close. But there were  ugly rocks
  here and there. No sane skipper, even an explorer, would  venture close to a shore like that. 
  The west side of the bay was against a high cliff. Doc Savage at  first had no intention of going near the cliff,
  but on closer  inspection, he saw something which drew him toward the spot. 
  Wave action in some distant age when the water was higher, had  hollowed out the base of the cliff. A wall
  had been thrown up in front  of the hollow, a wall that reached up to the cliff. It was a man−made  wall, neatly
  mortared. No telling how big the cavity behind was. 
  Intrigued, Doc searched for a hole through the wall. Toward the  opposite end, the wall arose sheer from the
  water, and there, judging  from appearances, a sizeable portion of the wall had been torn down,  and rebuilt.
  The mortar there was new, and looked as if it were frozen,  rather than dry. Doc decided the hole had been
  filled in within the  last month. 
  Doc Savage worked toward the other end of the wall. The cliff  towered above, overhanging. The sky was
  murky. An unusual play of  borealis furnished much of what light there was. 
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  Doc came upon a path. It was about three feet wide, cut neatly  through the drifts, the excavated snow piled on
  either side. There was  soft snow in the path, but it had not been disturbed by tracks. 
  The path terminated against the artificial wall. Doc Savage bent  low and inspected. There seemed to be a
  loose block of stone, perhaps  eighteen inches in each dimension, which was designed to come out. He
  worked at it. The rock came out. It was only a plate standing on edge. 
  He threw his flash beam inside. He saw nothing but a bleak stone  cavern, the opposite wall formed by the
  side of the wave−worn cliff.  The wall was too thick for him to see in either direction. 
  Doc worked at the mortared rocks. His strength was enormous, the  construction of the wall none too stable.
  That combination enabled him  to free some of the rocks. He made an opening which would permit him,  with
  difficulty, to squeeze through. He wormed in. 
  He was not quite through when something grabbed his wrist. 
  Chapter 15. MEN OF QUI
  IT FELT like a wire at first, a cable. It hauled with terrific  force. Doc was snapped completely out of the hole,
  hauled into the air. 
  He heard a rattle and squeak back in the cavern as this happened.  He knew then that it was a snare, some
  crude affair of pulleys and a  weight. 
  He did not thresh about needlessly, but merely kicked out with his  feet, found the wall was not in reach, then
  pulled himself up. The  agony was tremendous. He got hold of the wire −  it was a wire − above  the loop
  which imprisoned his wrist. 
  His next feat taxed even his remarkable muscles. He gripped the  wire high, did not try the entirely hopeless
  task of trying to climb  it, but brought his imprisoned wrist up and got a loop around the other  hand. Then he
  worked at the slip knot with his teeth. It was tight, but  it slid. 
  He dropped to the sandy floor, free. 
  Instantly, he whipped to one side. There was good reason for that.  He did not believe he had been careless
  enough to fall into any  ordinary snare. He was convinced that some one had dropped the loop  over his wrist 
  He was right. A squeaking ejaculation came from almost underfoot. A  hard blow struck his right leg, above
  the knee. Sharp agony accompanied  the blow. 
  The bronze man whipped to one side. He could feel wet warmth on his  leg. A wound. It did not seem to be
  bad. 
  A small, guttural voice squawked at his side. Then there was a  drumming sound in the darkness, a sound
  which might have been made by  scores of dogs running. 
  Something fastened to the bronze man's legs. Another. He reached  down, grasping, slapping. A small body
  fastened to his neck. More  descended upon his back. 
  He got hold of one of his assailants, and gripping the fellow,  heaved toward the hole. He fell, but he was near
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  enough to get his  captive in the light that came from outside. 
  At first glance, the being which Doc held looked like a small boy.  But the fellow was broader, heavier, and
  his face was seamed, that of  an old man. 
  Dozens of them were in the fight. One got around in front of Doc,  in the light. The little fellow had a club, a
  hideous thing, studded  with sharp iron spikes. He did his best to brain the bronze man with  it. Doc grasped at
  the club, got it and threw it out of the hole. 
  The bronze man was under a self−imposed handicap. He had no desire  to damage the little fellows. He had
  forced himself into some private  sanctuary of theirs, and he was getting, literally, not much worse than  his
  just deserts. He decided to crawl out through the hole. 
  That was a decision easier reached than accomplished. They grabbed  his legs, held on despite his violent
  kicking, and hauled him back. 
  The small men shouted from time to time. Their words were an  admixture of Viking dialect, coupled with an
  Indian lingo spoken by  some Canadian redmen. The combination was almost unintelligible to Doc.  But they
  might understand old Viking. He tried it. 
  "I am a stranger who means no harm," he said sharply in the Norse  tongue. 
  They understood. The striking and clubbing ceased, but they  retained a tight grip. 
  "Only fools fight," Doc told them. "Wise men talk. Let us talk." 
  There was some muttering in their vernacular, after which three  went back into the cavern and could be heard
  hitting flints with steel.  They finally got torches ignited. The torches consisted of pans made of  slabs of rock
  laboriously hollowed out and filled with oil, in which a  tall wick was floated through a bit of wood. 
  Light from the torches disclosed an amazing scene. 
  The cavern was of some size, and it was literally gorged with the  wrecks of ships, some dismantled and
  others almost intact. None of the  vessels were large. 
  Close at hand was the bowsprit and stem of what had probably been a  fishing schooner. Farther on was a
  whaleboat, some of the planking  stove in. There were numerous portions of keels, frames, and even part  of a
  deck house, with the portholes intact. 
  Looming huge in the darkness was a modern−looking craft which  looked enormously stout. Its hull was steel,
  and it was motor driven.  The superstructure apparently had been swiped off by a sea, and the  hulk was
  otherwise battered. It had been floated into the cavern −  there was water at the other end. Superhuman labor
  must have gone into  hauling out the hull. 
  There were hatches, wooden belaying pins, blocks, lines, spars,  masts, oars, and sails which had fallen to
  pieces. The place seemed to  be well ventilated, for most of the stuff was in an excellent state of  preservation.
  There is little rot in the Northland, anyway. 
  Occupying a place of honor − and Doc stared at it a long time − was  a Viking dragon ship which might have
  been a double for the one which  had put in such an amazing appearance in Long Island sound, except that  the
  bow of the craft was pretty much of a wreck, as if it had gone on a  rock before being hauled into this queer
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  place. 
  Doc's attention returned to his captors. They were amazing little  fellows, possibly not as small as it had
  seemed at first. 
  Doc had once visited pygmies in Africa. These fellows were about  the same size, although a bit broader and
  with round, butterball faces  − the young ones. The old ones were walking masses of wrinkles. 
  Doc decided they were ordinary North American aboriginal stock, who  had been stunted by some freak of
  heredity or environment. 
  "Who," Doc asked in Viking, "are you?" 
  "The medicine men of Qui," replied the most wrinkled of the lot.  "Why were you breaking into our sacred
  place, where only the medicine  men are permitted to come?" 
  It did not seem exactly suitable to explain that he had just been  curious, so Doc countered with a question. 
  "Is this," he demanded, "the way that well−meaning visitors should  be treated?" 
  "We will show you how we treat visitors," the medicine man chief  said calmly. 
  They closed in on him. Doc let them seize him and the leading  thongs to his wrists. He was curious to see
  what they intended doing. 
  THE SMALL men of Qui led the bronze giant out of their queer sacred  place, as they called it, and marched
  him down the trail scooped in the  snowdrifts. 
  Doc Savage did some thinking. The Viking dragon ship of Long Island  Sound had undoubtedly come from
  here. That meant the bearded crew who  had captured the yacht had sailed the dragon ship down from here. 
  This was something of a feat, considering the season of the year,  but not impossible. Had the Vikings not
  crossed the Atlantic, the  northern, dangerous part, too, according to wellfounded historical  opinion, using
  exactly such ships. Perhaps these identical ships. 
  Becalmed on Long Island Sound, the bearded crew of the Viking  dragon ship had taken the yacht to complete
  their voyage. They had  shaved off their beards, enlisted the aid of Peabody and Carleth, taken  a plane and
  come north − for what? That still remained a mystery. 
  Further recapitulation was interrupted by appearance of one of the  most primitive, striking settlements Doc
  had ever seen. 
  It looked as if some one with only a hazy idea of how to go about  it had attempted to construct a village
  patterned after those of  northern Europe in the tenth century. There was a wall, quite  substantial, but not
  overly high. Inside, there were several large  buildings which resembled big stone blocks. 
  Adding an almost laughable touch were several common Eskimo igloos,  and a few Indian wikiups of poles
  and animal skins. There were some sod  huts. 
  Plump little pygmy people were everywhere, swathed in fur garments  which did not differ greatly from the
  ordinary Eskimo type. They  swarmed out and surrounded Doc and the capturing party of medicine men. 
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  Doc expected his size to excite some astonishment it did, but not  as much as he had anticipated. The little
  fellows seemed fully aware  that the world held bigger mortals than themselves. A few minutes  later, Doc saw
  the reason. 
  A group of four normal−sized men appeared. They were clad warmly in  furs. But each man carried a long
  length of what must be ordinary  ship's anchor chain. The ends of these chains were fastened about the  men's
  ankles. It was an improvised and no doubt effective variation of  the ball−and−chain. 
  The wrinkled little chief medicine man prodded Doc and indicated  the four men with the chains, at least one
  of whom was white, the other  three apparently being ordinary Eskimos. 
  "They," said the medicine man in bad Viking, "were visitors like  yourself." 
  That did not sound so good. 
  Doc was led to a square block of a house. There was no door, no  windows. A pole was leaned against the
  wall and Doc was persuaded to  climb to the roof. 
  The roof had two holes. Out of one, smoke came. The other was  larger. Doc was shoved down it, into a black,
  rather chilly and smelly  interior. 
  "I'll be superamalgamated!" a scholastic voice greeted him. 
  THERE WAS an extremely large blubber lamp − possibly the local  version of a heating stove − burning
  under the small hole, and it gave  off some light and heat, in addition to much smoke. By that fitful  gleam,
  Doc discerned the bony Johnny. 
  The gaunt geologist and archaeologist was hugging the blubber  heater. He still wore nothing but his red
  underwear. 
  "It is a wonder you don't freeze to death," Doc told him. 
  "I am convinced I have," said Johnny, who made it a point not to  use his big words when talking to Doc
  Savage. "I have been running all  over the North Pole dressed like this. Why I am not dead, I don't know.  It is
  really remarkable." 
  Not when you considered John's whalebone constitution, Doc  reflected. 
  "What happened to you?" Doc asked. 
  Johnny told him. The recital missed no details, consequently  required some time. 
  "I eventually wandered to a spot where these little fellows saw  me," Johnny finished. "We had a bit of a
  battle, but I was almost  frozen. They threw me in here. I gather that they are going to tie a  piece of anchor
  chain to me and use me to perform useful tasks." 
  "They seem to have the same ideas about me," Doc admitted quietly. 
  "It appears they keep slaves," Johnny said. "Every one who drifts  in here winds up doing that. I believe they
  have some sailors, quite a  few Eskimos who got inquisitive and poked their kayaks in here. There  are also
  some Indians and a hunter and prospector or so who ventured  down over the cliffs." 
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  "You seem to have gotten quite a bit of information," Doc said. 
  "Oh, they're willing enough to talk. They're not bad fellows, in  spite of that slave business. They're even
  rather proud of their small  size. Seem to think it makes them superior." 
  Doc Savage looked up. A ring of faces was around the roof hole,  watching. 
  "Their small size is due to diet, probably," Doc said. 
  "They're thin−boned," Johnny admitted. "I found out that they get  their water from a spring. There is only the
  one spring. They brought  me some of the water." 
  He nodded at a bucket made of sealskin stretched over a wooden  framework. Doc went over and tasted some
  of the water. 
  "This probably explains it," he said. "The stuff seems to have a  mineral content, which might easily stunt
  growth." 
  "It's their private, sacred spring, thank goodness," Johnny  grunted. "They gave me that water as a special
  favor. Their slaves get  melted snow to drink. During the summer, there's a rivulet or two over  the cliffs. That
  explains why the Vikings weren't stunted." 
  "Vikings?" 
  "This is amazing," Johnny murmured. "Hard to believe. It seems  that, centuries ago, a colonizing expedition
  of Vikings in two dragon  ships came in here and were captured. They're here yet, their  descendants. I gather
  there is not over half a dozen of them now,  however. They must have been sturdy lads. The little fellows even
  speak  their language, and they can't speak any other tongue, except that  gibberish of their own." 
  Doc Savage said suddenly, "Kettler's crowd captured Monk, Ham and  Renny." 
  THAT STUNNED Johnny. He groped for words and found none. 
  "They were in three planes," Doc said. "Any sign of them?" 
  "I heard planes," Johnny said hoarsely. "That was while it was  snowing. They went on north. Must have
  missed this place." 
  "We must get out of here," Doc said. 
  He stood up, eyed the hole in the roof. The little men there seemed  to fathom his thoughts, for they made
  angry, admonishing noises and  shook knives, short spears and clubs, all Viking weapons. 
  "They still have a lot of the weapons brought here by those  shipwrecked Norsemen," Johnny said quietly. 
  Doc paced the dank, smoky chamber. 
  "What about Kettler?" he demanded. 
  "Kettler and his gang were shipwrecked here," Johnny said. "The  little fellows told me that. Kettler was a bad
  actor and a talker. He  got some of the little fellows, a few bad ones, to help him. They stole  a Viking ship and
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  85
  
  got away. They took one of the Viking girls. She knew  astronomical navigation. Those Norsemen were
  clever. The girl was to be  used to guide them back to this place. There is something here that  Kettler wants,
  and can only get with an armed force." 
  "So Kettler had some little men with him," Doc said grimly. "That  explains some queer things that happened
  in New York." 
  "You mean the attacks you mentioned, and the alarm clocks?" Johnny  queried. 
  "Yes," Doc said. "The little men got into my quarters, and into  Monk's laboratory. They used the alarm clocks
  to make a noise that  covered their movements while they hid after throwing the knives and  short spears.
  Probably Peabody put them up to that." 
  Johnny squinted at Doc Savage through the smoke from the big  blubber lamp. 
  "Just when did you suspect Peabody and Carleth?" he asked. 
  Doc Savage did not answer immediately. 
  "In New York," Doc Savage said. "At Carleth's house. We had gone  there hunting Ham. I used a trick to get a
  chance to search the house.  In the basement was a radio set, and while I was examining it, a man  came in, and
  I caught him. I have not told this to any one, for the  simple reason that − " 
  An excited outcry from the small men on the roof interrupted him. 
  "Listen!" Johnny exploded. 
  The moan of airplane engines sounded in the distance. 
  Chapter 16. DEATH IN QUI
  DOC SAVAGE whipped quickly to a position under the roof hole. None  of the little men were looking down
  now, but were staring upward into  the gaudy display of the borealis. The aerial pyrotechnics made an
  amazing background for the three dark noisy planes. To the midget men,  who had patently never seen a plane
  before, the scene was highly  dramatic. 
  The three planes swooped low, heading for the little village of  conglomerate Norse, Indian and Eskimo
  architecture. The small men on  the roof broke and fled, shouting. 
  Doc Savage glanced at Johnny, as if to point out the inadequateness  of the red−flannel underwear, sadly torn,
  as an Arctic garb. 
  "I know what you're thinking." Johnny stood up. "I didn't freeze  before, so why should I now?" 
  Doc Savage stripped off his parka, tossed it to Johnny. The strips  of blanket which Johnny had tied about his
  feet and legs were still in  place, furnishing some protection for those members. 
  "Thanks," said Johnny. 
  Doc Savage sank under the roof hole, then shot upward, and his  hands clamped the edge. He was outside with
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  flashing speed. 
  The three planes were off in the north again, apparently trying to  select a spot for a landing, and none of the
  small men were on the  roof. Johnny having pulled the parka on, clambered up to Doc's side. 
  "What is the program?" he asked. 
  "Monk, Ham and Renny are aboard those planes," Doc said. "We've got  to do something about that if it is not
  too late." 
  The bronze man surveyed the village. As he had expected, the  populace, even the slaves, had gathered outside
  the wall where a better  view could be had of the planes. 
  Doc and Johnny dropped off the roof and ran in the opposite  direction. A few dogs barked at them, but that
  did not draw attention.  They clambered over the wall and dived into brush and stones. 
  "They are rather careless with their prisoners," Doc said. 
  Johnny, running easily, replied, "They do not have to worry. Those  cliffs are a rather effective barrier, to
  prevent escape. And no one is  going to tackle the sea in a small boat at this time of year." 
  "The cliffs supposed to be unscalable?" Doc queried. They angled to  the left, circling back around the village. 
  "Not exactly," said Johnny. "I understand that the midgets have  climbed them, and a few slaves have escaped.
  But I imagine it did not  do them much good. Civilization is hundreds of miles away, over  frightfully barren
  country." 
  They were past the village, now, undiscovered, and heading for the  cultivated area. It was probably there that
  the planes would attempt to  land. 
  Johnny, who had the peculiar ability to carry on a conversation in  an almost perfectly normal voice while
  running at top speed, continued  imparting what he had learned. 
  "The little fellows used to send out hunting parties beyond the  cliffs," he said. "But they were no match for
  the Indians, who seem to  be rather fierce. The small chaps concluded they would be better off if  they kept to
  themselves and did not let the outer world know they were  here. That, you know, is not an uncommon
  attitude among primitive  people." 
  Doc said, "You learned a great deal." 
  "Oh, they're little windbags," said Johnny. "Those Vikings they  captured centuries ago proved to be their
  all−time prize capture of  slaves. They have legends about it. They thought I was another Viking,  because I
  could speak a little of the tongue. They were glad to get me,  I suspect." 
  "Look," Doc said. 
  The planes were coming down. 
  THE THREE crafts had selected, as Doc had anticipated, the  comparatively level cultivated area, which was
  under a smooth blanket  of snow. It was the only available spot, the little bay being full of  floating ice and
  partially frozen over, and the beach entirely too  rocky. 
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  Doc and Johnny were well to one side. They could hear sounds which  indicated the little men were working
  through the snow toward the  ships. 
  A shot cracked. A ragged fusillade followed. There were small  screams, angry shrieks. 
  "Devils!" Johnny gritted. "Kettler and his crowd have started  killing." 
  Doc Savage kept on for some hundreds of yards, then veered to  approach the planes from behind. 
  Fight noises had increased. Gunfire was almost continuous. The  small men, after the fashion of primitives,
  were doing much shouting as  they fought. 
  "There are the planes," Doc breathed finally. 
  The ships had been landed into the wind, but had then been taxied  back to the other side of the field on the
  chance that a hurried  take−off might be necessary. Doc had foreseen this. He and Johnny were  not fifty yards
  from the craft. 
  Kettler, Peabody and Carleth, along with most of their crowd, were  on the opposite side of the field, fighting.
  The small men had  prudently taken to the brush and boulders, where their primitive  weapons had a slight
  chance. They did not seem to be doing as badly for  themselves as might be expected. 
  "Because they are small does not mean they are weaklings," Johnny  muttered. "But they haven't got a
  chance." 
  Peabody had left guards at the planes. Obviously, these were both  watching the ships and guarding the
  prisoners. 
  There arose much shouting from across the field, where the fight  was in progress. Kettler and Peabody were
  squawling at those left  behind with the planes. Doc distinguished their words. 
  The fighters wanted ammunition. It seemed they had charged with  only what they had in their pockets, and
  that was running low. 
  The men at the planes became very busy hauling out ammunition  boxes. 
  "We'll try it now!" Doc said, and his voice was almost a chill  nothingness. 
  They crawled through the shrubbery, the bushes. The men about the  plane were entirely preoccupied with
  what they were doing. Frenzied  squawks from Peabody and Kettler, across the clearing, hurried them.
  Peabody and Kettler were fighting in the open, taking their chances.  Carleth was in the rear, crouching behind
  a rock, looking at the planes  frequently, as if he would like to come back. 
  Some small men were fighting other small men. They were the little  fellows who had thrown in with Kettler. 
  Doc Savage had one of the men at the planes down before he was  seen. He laid the victim up with that
  peculiar pressure on the spinal  nerve centers, at which he was so adept. 
  There were three others. Doc rushed, caught one, then got another,  who had fallen over an ammunition case.
  Neither was a weakling. They  went over and over in a cloud of snow. Johnny wrapped his bony length  about
  the survivor. 
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  In one of the planes, Monk began to flounder about and howl,  delighted at what was happening, angry
  because he was missing a fight. 
  Doc had trouble getting his foes by the neck. He changed tactics  and banged their heads together. They went
  limp. When be stood up,  Johnny had strangled his man into insensibility. 
  "TURN MONK and the others loose!" Doc rapped. 
  Without a word, Johnny dived into the ship which held the  prisoners. 
  Doc Savage lunged to the nearest motor, ripped up the hood, and  began tearing at the ignition system. He
  loosened certain very  essential parts, carried them with him, took the second motor, a third,  removing parts
  from each. 
  It would have been better if there had been more time. But  Kettler's men were already shooting, yelling and
  running back across  the clearing. 
  Monk fell out of the plane, limbs stiffened by being long bound.  Renny followed him. Then Ham. 
  "Gather up the ammunition!" Doc shouted. 
  Without asking questions, they started shouldering the heavy ammo  boxes. It was easy to pick them out. They
  were plainly marked. 
  Doc Savage finished with the last of the motors, and had a tangle  of ignition parts in his hands. It was hardly
  likely they could be  replaced. He seized the last of the ammo cases. They ran. 
  Kettler and his crowd kept up a rattling fire, but were having  their troubles with the deep snow. A bullet
  lodged in the ammo box Monk  carried, and several cartridges exploded, blowing the lid off the box. 
  Monk, startled, dropped the box and ran, but when all the  cartridges did not go, ran back and got the case,
  slapping his side  where a bullet had grooved. 
  That was the only difficulty they suffered before reaching shelter. 
  The girl, Ingra, had one of the heavy cases, and she began to fall  behind. Doc relieved her of the case, which
  somehow seemed to pique  her. 
  They ran with deadly earnestness. The cold air was agony in their  lungs. 
  Sounds indicated the small men were pursuing Kettler's crowd,  hampering them. Shooting was steady. There
  were more than a few mortal  screams. 
  Kettler's gang reached the plane. Monk grinned all over his homely  face at the burst of profanity that arose, as
  if it were a beautiful  sound. 
  Kettler tried to follow them to get his ammunition back. But the  small men had surged down the side of the
  clearing, and cut him off.  They fought among the trees and rocks. 
  Then Kettler, growing suddenly cautious, ordered his men to form a  compact group, and tried to return to the
  planes. They found a swarm of  little men about the ships, fired a few shots, then angled off to the  right and
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  took up a position atop a hillock which had been swept bare  of snow. 
  They stopped there, ringed in by small foes who, after some of them  had been shot, were not idiotic enough
  to try a charge. 
  Doc and his party got to another high spot, where they could see  what was going on, and stopped to breathe,
  to watch. They were rather  pleased with themselves. That feeling evaporated when they saw what was
  happening to the planes. 
  THE LITTLE men were tearing the ships to pieces. They were using  clubs, rocks, to beat in the wings and
  fuselage coverings. They were  like small ants dismembering a trio of captured hornets many times  their size. 
  Doc shouted. The girl, Ingra, yelled. It had no effect. A horde of  the little men climbed on the plane wings
  and jumped up and down until  the wings buckled. 
  "Holy cow!" Renny rumbled. "We gotta stop that." 
  He started forward. Doc stopped him. 
  "The little men are maddened," the bronze man said. "You cannot  blame them. Keep away from them. They
  might kill you." 
  Renny scowled at the distant planes, not one of which was intact. 
  "Maybe we can put 'em together later," he muttered. "If we can't,  we're in a pickle, what I mean. How we
  gonna get out of this place?" 
  Renny's worst apprehensions were exceeded. The small men, having  dismembered the planes by sheer force
  of numbers, now began hauling the  parts toward the sea. They even took the motors, tying lines to the  heavy
  things and a score or more of them seizing each line. 
  They dumped the parts over a small cliff, into swift−moving tidal  current. The motors, of course, sank. But
  the wing assemblies floated  away before they filled and disappeared. 
  Renny groaned, "Now, we are up against it!" 
  Chapter 17. ULTIMATUM
  THE DEMOLITION and disposition of the planes, which the primitive  little dwarf men seemed to consider
  devil birds in part responsible for  their woes, had the effect of dispelling some of the mad rage. The  small
  fellows stopped their insensate screeching, and in grim silence  gathered up their dead. 
  This quiet fooled Kettler and his men into trying to make a break  from their knoll, which was a bad move
  indeed, for they were set upon  fiercely, lost two men, and were glad to get back in the open where  their guns
  could be used most effectively. Shooting during this fray  was not nearly as free as during the previous scrap. 
  Complete silence fell when Kettler's crowd were back on their  prominence. No bullets were being wasted. 
  Doc Savage and his group, fully rested now, worked cautiously in  the direction of the village. They still
  carried the ammunition boxes.  When they were within half a mile of the settlement, still  undiscovered, Doc
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  called a halt, and directed all to conceal themselves  in the drifted snow, but, however, to keep a sharp
  look−out. 
  "You," Doc told Ingra in halting Viking, "will accompany me." 
  "What are you going to do?" she demanded. 
  "Attempt to enlist ourselves on the side of the small men," Doc  explained. 
  "You will probably not have any luck," the young woman surmised.  "The little men are very proud. They will
  resent the idea that they  need help." 
  But Doc Savage had a system for getting around that. He advanced,  with no show of hostility, until he and
  Ingra were surrounded and taken  into the village. 
  They were led past a group of the normal−sized slaves who wore  chains, and one of these shouted gladly at
  Doc. The individual was a  French−Canadian trapper, and he did not seem as gloomy as one might  expect. 
  "They keep me by thees places maybe ten year, oui," he shouted.  "She not so bad as maybe yo' t'ink. They
  tak' off the chains when we  'ave not the work to do. She not worth get killed for to try to get  away, lak' some
  do." 
  "Thanks," Doc told him. 
  Doc and Ingra were brought before the medicine men, who seemed to  be the chiefs as well. They wore sour
  expressions when he started  talking. 
  Ingra stood back and listened. Her features radiated skepticism as  Doc began, but that faded to admiration.
  The bronze man had wisely  taken a meek attitude, his manner indicating that the small men were  his masters,
  as they indeed were at the moment. 
  Doc pointed out quietly that he had stolen the ammunition of  Kettler's gang − he had to explain what
  ammunition was, and did it in a  subtle fashion which gave the impression that the small men not knowing
  that it was not ignorance, but really a matter hardly worth the notice  of such remarkable fellows. 
  His oration was long, and probably as psychologically clever as any  talk he had ever made, and he wound up
  by stating that he could plainly  see the small men did not need his help, but that he would consider it  a great
  favor on their part if he would be permitted to help fight  their enemies, who were also his foes. 
  It was blarney, pure and simple, but it worked. Doc was informed he  had permission to bring his friends to
  the village, and that, if they  behaved themselves, they would be allowed to fight. 
  After hostilities were over, and these enemies of Qui settled with,  Doc was further advised that he would be
  given the great privilege of  becoming a slave of the Qul. 
  He thanked Thera with a straight face. 
  INGRA WENT back with Doc to get his friends. The young woman was  impressed. 
  "Your tongue is the mightiest of your weapons," she informed him. 
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  Doc reached his group, and explained the situation. Particularly  did he explain it to Monk, who was a bluff
  soul and liable to fly off  the handle at the idea of being treated as an inferior by ignorant and  somewhat
  smelly little men whose average weight was probably a fifth of  his own. 
  "0. K.," Monk grumbled. "But it's against my principles." 
  "You haven't got any principles," Ham told him. 
  "And you haven't got a valet," Monk sneered. 
  Ham shut up. 
  The small men took the boxes of ammunition away, and Doc, after  some round−about inquiring, learned they
  intended to store it in a  house where it would be safe. 
  To the disgust of Doc and the others' disgust which they did not  voice, lest they offend their hosts, the bronze
  man and his aides were  bundled into the establishment where the slaves were kept. 
  This was a walled enclosure, constructed of stones and mortar, with  needle−pointed hardwood thorns inserted
  in the mortar, points downward,  the thorns being stout enough to afford a grip, but sharp enough and  plentiful
  enough to make climbing the wall a horrible job. 
  Inside the pen, the enforced laborers had been permitted to build  huts to suit their fancy. The Eskimos tended
  to ice igloos for the  winter and sod huts for the summer, the Indians had wikiups, tepee  affairs, and the
  French−Canadian had built himself a little stone house  that might have been transplanted from his fatherland. 
  The other slaves were sociable souls, anxious to talk. They were  surprisingly resigned to their lot, and did not
  seem unhappy. The  descendants of the Vikings, in particular, were full of boyish good  humor. 
  Doc was introduced, if that was what it could be termed, to Ingra's  father, a strapping brother, and another
  stalwart young Norseman who  bent many a fond gaze on the young woman. This last came to the  attention of
  Monk. 
  "Competition," he said gloomily. "Well, I'll give him a run for his  money. That young lady would make a
  swell partner if we had the bad  luck of being stuck here for good." 
  Ham overheard that, looked wise, and a bit later was discovered  presenting Ingra with his wrist watch, a very
  fine jeweled gaudy which  Ham had preserved from Kettler's men by dropping it inside his tall  moccasins. 
  Monk was not the only aggravated observer. The young Norseman  suitor looked daggers. That gave Monk an
  idea, and he singled out  Johnny. 
  "Teach me the Viking words for, 'He has a wife and thirteen  children,"' Monk requested. 
  Johnny innocently complied. Monk repeated them several times, got  the words down pat, then went over to
  the strapping Norseman lad,  pointed at Ham, and laboriously recited the words. 
  The Norseman lost no time. He strode toward Ham, collared him, and  shoved him away from Ingra. Ham
  resented this, took a poke at the  Norseman − and was knocked head over heels. Monk went off into a corner
  with his mirth. 
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  Ingra, with feminine contrariness, made a bigger fuss than ever  over Ham. 
  Shots banked frequently in the distance. There was not enough of  them to indicate an engagement of
  consequence. Every one seemed to be  marking time. 
  Doc Savage talked to the French−Canadian. 
  "Kettler ver' bad, m'sieu'," said the trapper. "Me, I 'ave only  hope he ees get wheep." 
  Doc Savage held the same views. He was becoming somewhat impatient,  having hoped that the small men
  would deign to accept his aid before  this, but it seemed that the little fellows were blissfully confident  of
  taking care of matters themselves. They might, too, if there was not  an upset. 
  THERE WAS an upset. It came hours later, when the occupants of the  slave compound had settled down to
  get some very necessary sleep. It  started with an uproar. 
  Shots ripped out. Screams! A machine gun gobbled − and gobbled and  gobbled. 
  Doc Savage scrambled out of the French−Canadian's rock house,  hospitality of which he had accepted, and
  sprinted for the wall. He  began breaking off the thorns. 
  The uproar in the village was blood−curdling. The crash of rifle  fire was ear−splitting, and the shrieks not
  pleasant listening. Bullets  whined, spanged rocks, ricocheted everywhere. 
  Doc got the thorns broken off nearly to the wall top, then leaped,  and managed to grab an outthrust of stone,
  from which he broke off more  thorns, then grasped the top of the wall. 
  A small man came rushing up, clubbed his hands before he could  hoist himself to the top, and forced him to
  drop back. 
  The fighting continued. Those in the compound were helpless to take  part. 
  Able−bodied guards on the wall were soon replaced with others who  had been wounded, and were unfit for
  the more fierce fighting. 
  "That looks bad!" Monk muttered. 
  Ingra shouted questions at the new guards, and the answers she  received explained what had happened. 
  "Some of the little men fighting with Kettler's gang had friends in  the village," she said. "They tipped the
  others off to where the  ammunition was hidden. Peabody and Kettler and Carleth got it. Now  they're
  slaughtering the little men." 
  There was only one point where the compound wall could be scaled −  the spot where Doc had broken off the
  thorns. They tried again and  again to get out there. The little men, from the secure footing of the  wall top,
  beat them back. 
  The captives tried making living pyramids at other parts of the  wall. That did not work, either. They decided
  to try several points at  once. 
  Then, unexpectedly, the fighting ended. 
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  A GRISLY sort of quiet followed, lasting some thirty minutes,  during which every one in the compound felt
  that something ominous was  gathering. Even the natural surroundings seemed to partake of the evil  air, for
  the sound of the sea was not as loud as usual, except to the  south, where it pounded hollowly against the
  cliffs. 
  Then small men came marching to the compound. They shouted commands  that made the Viking girl, Ingra,
  gasp out in horror. 
  "What is it?" Monk exploded. 
  "Peabody's crowd has come out on top," Doc Savage said grimly.  "They have made the little men of Qui
  agree to let them take what they  came here for, repair the dragon ship in the shrine cavern, and sail it  away." 
  Monk moistened his lips. "That's not so terrible." 
  "That is not all of it"' Doc told him. 
  Monk swallowed and looked a question. 
  "Kettler and Peabody have been given the privilege of killing us,"  Doc said. 
  Chapter 18. THE DOUBLE−CROSSER
  IF DOC Savage seized upon any momentary hopes of escaping before  Peabody's gang arrived to gather the
  fruits of their victory, the  bronze man was thwarted, because normal−sized men, carrying rifles and  machine
  guns, appeared outside the compound. Peabody, rotund, pink and  happy, led them, and coarse−voiced Kettler
  at his heels. 
  Because there was no other sane course, Doc and his aides stepped  out when they were ordered to do so. 
  "Let 'em have it here," Kettler suggested. 
  Peabody hesitated, then shook his head. "Might stir these little  runts up again. Let's get 'em away from the
  village." 
  Kettler was suddenly smitten with an idea. He snapped his fingers. 
  "Have the runts show us where they keep those special offerings to  their great spirit," he said. "We'll get the
  stuff, and leave this  bronze guy and his pals there. Sort of a trade." 
  "It's damn foolishness," said the practical Peabody. "But all  right." 
  Doc Savage and the others were formed in a line. They were not  bound, although they were searched very
  thoroughly. 
  "Run, if you wanta," said Kettler. "That'd make it easier on our  consciences." 
  Doc did not run. Neither did his men. They were marched out of the  village, thence southward, guided by
  sullen medicine men who did not  come above any one's belt. 
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  They walked for so long that Peabody and Kettler began to hear  complaints from their followers, who loudly
  declared they were tired,  what with the fighting and all, and anyway, they had a hunch the  medicine men
  were misleading them. Kettler, largely by signs, let the  medicine men understand they would not live long
  once trickery was  evident. 
  Monk, shuffling along with Doc, remarked, "I don't see that guy  Carleth. Wonder if he got killed in the
  fighting?" 
  They trod through brush thickets, shuffled among boulders, wallowed  in snow. Not once did a chance for
  escape present, although they  watched assiduously for one, however small. 
  Monk grumbled, "Wonder what they're going after?" 
  The way turned wilder. They were entering a wedge bounded on one  side by the sea, turbulent and ice caked,
  and on the other side by the  cliffs, sheer, unclimbable. 
  Peabody became more ugly in his signaling to the medicine men;  they, in turn, put more vehemence into their
  attempts to indicate  everything was all right. They smiled − forced, horrible smiles, for  all of them had seen
  these fiends shoot down friends and relatives −  and ran on ahead, pointing. 
  The spot they indicated was a small, round clearing among naked  trees and evergreen brush. In the center of
  this was erected a circular  stone platform, on which stood a carved totem of wood. 
  The medicine men pointed at the totem, jabbered. 
  "Hell!" Peabody gritted. "They don't know what we want!" 
  "Wait," growled Kettler. "Let's look around. Try moving the totem." 
  There was a stir in the brush near by, causing several guns to  shift in that direction. 
  Thorpe Carleth stumbled out and confronted them. He sat his glasses  on his nose and looked at them
  foolishly. 
  "I got lost," said Carleth, "during the fighting." 
  Peabody cursed him. 
  "You've got lost in all of our fights," he said. "I'm gonna have  things to say about that." 
  Kettler let out a yell. He had shoved the totem, and it had moved,  lifting also the rock in which it was set. 
  THE MEN ran forward with excited cries − but not all of them.  Enough kept their guns alert to hold Doc and
  his aides in their tracks. 
  Kettler and the others were levering up the stones. This uncovered  dry leaves, and they dug in furiously,
  tearing the leaves aside,  scattering them over the snow. Kettler emitted a new bawl of joy, and  struggled with
  something that was heavy. 
  It was an old ship's safe, complete with the straps with which it  had once been fastened to a bulllhead. They
  worked at the door, got it  open, and dug out some fistfuls of coins, packets of ancient paper  money. 
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  A copper−bound chest followed next. It fell to pieces while they  were trying to get it out, and some of the
  contents spilled. There were  jewels, some unmounted, the majority in knife and sword hilts, and  inset in
  various pieces of armor. 
  "The stuff those old Viking freebooters had on their dragon ships  when they were wrecked here!" Peabody
  chortled. "Boy, is this  something! As antiques, the junk is worth no telling how much its value  as metal and
  jewels." 
  They continued to dig in the leaves. They excavated a shower of  small skeletons, and heaved them away into
  the snow. 
  The medicine men shifted and muttered at the desecration, and Doc  caught enough of their mumbling to
  understand that this was the burying  place of the medicine men of the past. 
  Kettler's crowd was not satisfied with all they brought up. There  was, for instance, much copper, which of
  course was hardly worth  packing back to civilization, and which was the more aggravating  because Kettler's
  men had difficulty telling it from the gold in some  cases. There were old ship's kettles, binnacles, railings,
  mostly of  copper, but some of brass. 
  It was obvious that the small men of Qui, having learned yellow  metal was prized by men of the outer world,
  had failed to distinguish  between gold and brass and copper. Also between silver and lead, it  developed, for
  they found a number of tons of ballast lead taken from  some ship. 
  Kettler finally stood back. 
  "This is it," he said. "Now, let's get this Doc Savage out of the  way for good." 
  He waved at men he must have selected previously as executioners.  They lifted their weapons. 
  A grim, wildly determined voice shrieked, "Don't do that, Kettler!" 
  Kettler spun. So did every one else. 
  Carleth stood at the clearing edge, whence he had retreated to  produce, from where he had hidden it, no
  doubt, before he showed  himself a few minutes ago, a machine gun. Carleth had the machine gun  trained on
  Kettler and the others. 
  "Stand still, all of you!" Carleth screamed. 
  Vehemence of his yell shook Carleth, and his glasses fell off. 
  DOC SAVAGE moved like he never had before. Carleth's glasses  falling off decided him. Carleth was so
  nearsighted he could not tell  friend from foe at twenty feet. 
  Doc whipped at Peabody, hit the man and knocked him into the loose  leaves that filled the pit under the
  shrine. Monk and the others  exploded, making for the gang who had been on the point of executing  them. 
  A gun went off. That was Renny's victim, who fired in the air,  convulsively. 
  The machine gun let out a stuttering uproar. Men shrieked and  cursed and some fell. The others recoiled
  wildly, and dived for the  spot where they had put their arms aside while they unearthed the  wealth under the
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  shrine. 
  It was an unfortunate move for them, putting their guns aside, for  it enabled Doc Savage and his men, in the
  final analysis, to make their  escape. 
  The only ones with guns were the executioners, and Doc's first wild  charge, with his men, put these out of
  commission. The bronze man went  on and reached Carleth's side. 
  About the same moment, the machine gun stopped. 
  "Ammunition out!" Carleth shrieked. "I only had part of a drum." 
  "Run for it," Doc directed, and pitched out of the clearing. 
  The bronze man's aides followed him. There was only a fractional  moment in which to act, for Kettler's
  crowd were falling upon their  weapons. Doc and his aides did, however, succeed in getting into the  boulders
  before shooting really started. "Let's go!" the bronze man  commanded grimly. "If they overhaul us now, we're
  in a pickle." 
  They had started south, toward the narrowing "V" of the cliffs, and  they kept going in that direction, knowing
  that to veer to either side  would mean they would be cut off but aware also of a horrible certainty  of being
  trapped ahead. Surprise, fortunately, had given them a little  advantage. 
  The cliffs were close now − their shadow made almost darkness about  them, and this handicapped them a bit,
  but handicapped also their  pursuers, who were now following by vision − their footprints − rather  than sound. 
  They came, shortly, to the spot where the cliff breasted the sea,  and waves smashed with appalling force
  against stone. 
  The tide was out, but coming in with the amazing speed  characteristic of this region. The tides here were not
  as great as in  the Bay of Fundy, to the south, where the rise and fall is often  twoscore feet, but it was
  considerable. 
  There was, they saw, a strip of sand along the foot of the cliff,  as yet uncovered by water. Waves, however,
  crawled up fearsomely to the  stone wall. 
  "Come on," Doc directed. 
  He ran into the water. It was very cold. When it was up around his  knees, he turned to the left, as if heading
  back along the beach in the  direction they had come. 
  "We won't make it!" Monk exploded. "They'll see us!" 
  "Trick," Doc said, and waded out deeper. 
  Then he turned sharply back and headed for the line of cliffs. 
  "We may be able to locate a ledge above the level of high tide," he  explained. "That's our only chance.
  They've got guns. 
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  The sand was hard − it had frozen while the tide was out and it was  slick going. Time after time, they fell.
  The strip of sand, welcomingly  wide at first, rapidly narrowed but that was because the tide was  coming in
  fast. 
  "We're liable to be cut off," Monk groaned. "Fact is, I don't  believe we could make it back. This water is too
  darn cold for anybody  to swim in." 
  They had gone fully half a mile, without a sign of a break in the  cliffs. Waves were breaking over them now,
  smashing them about, soaking  them. 
  "There!" Doc rapped, and pointed. 
  It was a ledge, amply wide, but some fifty feet up. The surface of  the cliff sloped, was rugged, and could be
  climbed. 
  Doc mounted, assisting the others to go up as he did. They dropped  on the ledge, soaked, breathless, and
  looked back. 
  Peabody, Kettler and their men must have been taken in by the fake  tracks, which they had no doubt seen in
  the knee−deep water. They could  be heard shouting. 
  "In another ten minutes, the tide will have that strip of land  covered," Monk grunted. "That means we'll be
  safe for at least several  hours." 
  CARLETH WAS by far the most exhausted man in the group. The cold  air had burned his lung tissue and he
  hacked and strangled several  times. 
  "Breathe inside your parka," Monk suggested. 
  Carleth did that, and caught his breath. 
  "Guy, you sure done us a turn back there," Monk told Carleth. "Just  what made you do it?" 
  Carleth seemed vastly surprised. He looked at Doc Savage. 
  "I did not tell them, Carleth," the bronze man said. 
  "Huh!" Monk exploded. "Tell us what?" 
  "Remember when we were at Carleth's house, and I faked the thrown  knife gag to give me a chance to search
  the premises?" Doc queried. 
  "Sure." 
  "I caught Carleth in the basement, putting the radio out of  commission," Doc said. "That proved absolutely
  that he was one of the  gang." 
  "Holy cow!" boomed Renny, who had overheard. "You got wise that  early in the game?" 
  "Carleth was sick of the whole thing," Doc said. "The killing of  Ham's apartment house superintendent had
  decided Carleth to quit the  game. He told me this there in the basement of the house, and I  believed him. He
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  told me the whole story. He offered to string along  and help me. I took him up." 
  "And I must confess I was not a great deal of use," Carleth  muttered. 
  Monk looked somewhat injured. 
  "But why didn't you tell us, Doc?" he demanded. 
  "Carleth's life was at stake, and more," the bronze man said  quietly. "The slightest hint of what he was doing,
  and he would have  been killed." 
  Monk grumbled, "But we could have kept it quiet." 
  Doc smiled. It was rarely that he did that. 
  "It was much more convincing as it was," he said. 
  Monk finally grinned. "Yeah, Doc. You're right, at that." The  homely chemist eyed Carleth. "Say, that long
  yarn about you and Peabody  bein' held prisoners in your house was a lie, eh?" 
  "Of course," said Carleth. 
  Monk waved his arms, so that circulation would not slacken too  much. It was not so cold but that they could
  stand it, with  precautions. 
  Monk also did some thinking. It was rarely that Doc Savage did as  he had done with this man Carleth. It was
  a risk, the bronze man  staking so much on character judgment. Or had it been a risk? Carleth  would hardly
  have dared tell his fellows what he had done. 
  But, studying Carleth, Monk abruptly decided Carleth was sincere.  Right now, the man looked happy, as if he
  were helping do the world a  good turn. 
  A roaming bullet distracted Monk's attention. The bit of lead  glanced off the cliff above them, went singing
  nastily out to sea. 
  Kettler's crowd had discovered them. 
  KETTLER BELLOWED great oaths which reached entirely to where Doc  and his aides crouched. Peabody
  came running, and waved his arms,  beckoning, urging every one forward. They charged onto the narrow
  ribbon of beach under the cliffs. 
  Traversing approximately a hundred yards, Peabody, Kettler and  their crowd had to cross a low spot where
  the tide had already covered  the sand and was smashing against the beach. They splashed through. The  water
  was nearly to their waists. 
  "Holy cow!" Renny boomed. "That was dry when we went through." 
  Johnny said, "Tides usually do not come in steadily, but in three  surges, during which the water rises much
  more." 
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  Doc Savage was shouting. He had made a funnel of his metallic  hands, and he lifted his remarkable voice to
  its greatest volume. He  was directing a warning at Peabody and Kettler. 
  "Go back!" he called. "You can't make it." 
  "Hell we can't!" Peabody bellowed. 
  He thought Doc was threatening him, whereas the bronze man, in  accordance with his policy of seeing no
  lives taken that might be  saved, was conveying a warning. 
  Peabody himself fired a shot. The others with him did likewise, and  the storm of lead thus unleashed drove
  Doc and those with him flat on  the ledge. 
  There they lay, not even lifting their heads until a man shrieked  on the tiny beach, not far away. Then they
  chanced a glance. 
  There was no beach now. Waves were piling in. Offshore, there was a  tide rip, and this tossed up waves that
  came lunging in furiously. The  man who had shrieked was in the water, being lifted, battered against  the
  stone, carried back, flung against the cliff again. 
  A moment later, another man was off his feet. Then Peabody and  Kettler went almost together, as they turned
  and tried to fight their  way back. 
  The water was cold enough to chill the strongest swim men into a  near paralysis, and even had any of them
  been able to keep afloat, the  waves would have driven them against the rocks. It became certain that  they
  were to drown, to the last man. 
  "If we could save them," Doc Savage said slowly, "we would." 
  Monk looked at Carleth. 
  "Doc would," Monk said. "He's funny that way." 
  Chapter 19. WAR CLOUDS
  FOUR MONTHS, New York City was treated to a little mystery which,  for a few days, got a good deal of
  newspaper attention. 
  A Viking dragon ship was discovered tied to a Brooklyn dock one  morning. The craft undoubtedly had been
  rebuilt in part within recent  months, and bore evidences of a long, rough sea voyage. Searchers found  no one
  aboard. 
  Nor did any one ever appear to state where the unique craft had  come from, nor was there a claim of
  ownership made. 
  The services of that learned and big−worded archaeologist, William  Harper Littlejohn, were solicited, and he,
  after due examination,  declared the dragon ship a genuine Viking product, most of it hundreds  of years old,
  but some of it modern repair work. 
  As on another occasion, the more playful tabloids translated  Johnny's big words for their readers. The dragon
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  ship was taken to a  museum and placed beside that other dragon ship which had appeared so  mysteriously in
  Long Island Sound. 
  Johnny had a very good reason for not telling all he knew. 
  The little men of Qui had, of course, elected to stay in their  retreat. 
  Most of the "slaves" had elected to remain, also, among them − this  to Monk's chagrin − Ingra. Doc Savage
  had been the guiding medium in a  mutual understanding between the men of Qui and their "slaves" before  he
  left. He had, in fact, succeeded in carrying out a Lincolnesque role  in that the servitors had been emancipated
  for the future. This  arrangement had seemed eminently satisfactory to every one. 
  Some of the impressed servitors, among them the French−Canadian  trapper, had returned with Doc. Some
  Eskimos and Indians had been  returned to their tribes, to tell tales which no one believed. 
  The men of Qui would benefit little if civilization did know of  them, and certainly, unknown, they would not
  be exploited by smooth  talking go−getters. They were happiest where they were, as they were. 
  THERE WAS some talk in antique circles during the next few months  about certain very valuable and
  undoubtedly genuine Viking items which  had come on the market. 
  The money from the antiques, Doc Savage employed to purchase a  shipload of commoner conveniences of
  civilization, and this was  delivered to Qui by men who knew how to keep their mouths shut. The  first shipped
  did not take all of the money; there was more for the  years following. 
  THE END 
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SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Vault2.0.-.Fiction-and-audiobooks/Books/R/Robeson, Kenneth/029 Quest of Qui.pdf