TEXT:  
   
  THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER 
  A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson 
   
  Originally published in DOC SAVAGE magazine January 1938 
   
   
  The Mountain Monster 
  turns a peaceful valley into a place of sudden death— 
  until Doc Savage comes to challenge its power! 
   
  A Book-length Novel 
   
  By Kenneth Robeson 
   
  Chapter I 
  TERROR STRIKES 
   
  “THE 
  MONSTER” 
  came 
  without 
  warning. It came as Indian legend had said it 
  would come, in the night and while a storm 
  raged. It brought terror and horror to peaceful 
  Arcadia Valley. It transformed an Alaskan 
  paradise into a panic-stricken, fear-blanched 
  hell. 
  
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  2 
  Arcadia Valley had been chosen as 
  the site for one of the government’s 
  settlement projects. The land was fertile, 
  water was plentiful. Cabins sprang up swiftly 
  as modern pioneers saw realization of long-
  cherished hopes almost within their grasp. 
  John 
  Alden 
  was 
  one 
  of 
  the 
  government engineers. His cabin was at the 
  upper end of the long valley, his closest 
  neighbor two miles away. 
  And it was there The Monster first 
  appeared! 
  Rain hammered on the tin roof of the 
  cabin. Thunder cracked in the near-by 
  mountains. John Alden tossed on his cot. 
  Then came the scream. 
  John Alden jerked bolt upright. The 
  shrill echo of that scream rang in his ears. 
  Then it came again. It was high, 
  sharp, not the scream of a man in pain, but 
  the scream of a man whose nerves have 
  given away. 
  The scream ended on a high note. It 
  was cut off short, almost as if a giant hand 
  had crunched about the throat from which the 
  sound came. 
  Cold chills swept the engineer’s long, 
  lanky body. And then his straining ears 
  caught another sound, a sound such as he 
  had never heard before. It came like the 
  splashing of boots in thick mud. 
  But it was more than that. It was as if 
  some giant man or beast was taking huge 
  steps, and not with two feet or four, but with 
  many. 
  Somehow, John Alden found he had 
  left the cot; his fear-numbed hands sought 
  the rifle that hung over the door. He levered a 
  shell into the barrel. A moment more and he 
  had dashed from the cabin. 
   
   
  COLD rain whipped into Alden’s 
  face. Drenched and shivering in pajamas, the 
  tall engineer crouched, all senses alert. 
  Those screams could have come 
  from only one man. “Buck” Dixon, his partner, 
  must be in peril. And Dixon was a former 
  soldier, knew how to take care of himself. 
  Buck Dixon had gone down into the 
  valley to call on some new arrivals. He must 
  be hurt, possibly dead—  
  John Alden strained his ears. The 
  queer sounds he had heard vanished. Rain 
  and thunder broke the stillness. 
  He found himself recalling the stories 
  the Indians had told him of The Monster, the 
  legend of a dread, foul beast that lived in the 
  mountains. 
  And it was then Alden received 
  another indication of the horror that was to 
  come. 
  There was an odor in the air, an 
  unclean, almost overpowering odor. It was 
  sickening. It seemed like the scent of some 
  animal. 
  And the Indians had said such an 
  odor was always present when The Monster 
  appeared! 
  John Alden’s tongue suddenly felt 
  thick. The odor had a peculiar, cloying 
  sweetness that hung in the air despite the 
  rain. It penetrated the brain, made him feel 
  almost light-headed. 
  And it had another result as well: 
  While his entire body shrank with distaste, 
  although the odor was repelling, yet it had a 
  queer fascination, an almost hypnotic pull. 
  While his mind cried out for him to 
  turn and run, John Alden found that his 
  muscles were not obeying. Instead, foot by 
  foot, he was moving ahead into the darkness, 
  where the scent became more powerful. 
  John Alden had never been called a 
  coward. But he was afraid then. 
  He knew that another force, stronger 
  than his own, had taken possession of his 
  body. 
  That 
  force 
  was 
  dragging 
  him 
  resistlessly onward. 
  He opened his own mouth to 
  scream. No sound came from his lips. His 
  vocal cords apparently were paralyzed. The 
  dread odor grew stronger and stronger. 
   
   
  JOHN ALDEN broke into a run. A 
  choking, bubbling sound came from close 
  ahead, seemed to break the uncanny, 
  hypnotic spell. 
  The sound came again, but John 
  Alden was no longer afraid. There was 
  nothing supernatural about that sound. It 
  came from human lips. 
  The trail made a sudden twist. A dark 
  object, sprawled doglike, loomed ahead. The 
  queer, bubbling sounds came from it. 
  
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  3 
  The sprawled figure tried to rise as 
  John Alden came in view. Shrill words burst 
  from it: 
  “I saw it! I saw it! It was a big 
  monster, a huge, creeping shape with many 
  legs. It almost got me. Then it went away. It 
  jumped over the trees.” 
  John Alden grabbed the figure by the 
  shoulders, shook violently. “Buck! Buck! 
  Snap out of it!” 
  Of all things that happened that 
  night, what occurred next was strangest to 
  John Alden. 
  Buck Dixon suddenly scrambled to 
  his feet. His face underwent an amazing 
  transformation. The fear and panic left it. It 
  set in its usual hard, self-reliant lines. 
  “What are you doing out here with 
  that gun in your hands?” Buck Dixon 
  rumbled. Only faint embarrassment was in 
  his voice. He grabbed John Alden by an arm, 
  propelled him toward the cabin. 
  “Come on, we’d better get under 
  cover before you take your death of cold.” 
  John Alden gasped. He sniffed the 
  air, hesitated. His eyes held an unbelieving, 
  baffled look. That strange, overpowering odor 
  had vanished. The air was clean and pure. 
   
   
  JOHN ALDEN and Buck Dixon did 
  not tell the Arcadian colonists what had 
  happened. In fact, John Alden had difficulty 
  in making his stocky partner admit the next 
  day that anything out of the way had 
  occurred. 
  Outside, the sun was shining. The 
  events of the night did seem improbable to 
  John Alden, too. But he remembered the 
  queer sounds he had heard. 
  A harried look came to Buck Dixon’s 
  face when the tall engineer told of those 
  sounds. His hands trembled. 
  “It was huge, with enormous legs. A 
  terrible smell came from it. It came right 
  toward me. I thought I was a goner. Then it 
  leaped over the trees,” he whispered. 
  “There should be tracks,” John Alden 
  said. 
  John Alden was right. They found 
  tracks! 
  The tracks were curious. Both Dixon 
  and Alden were woodsmen. They knew how 
  to read signs. But they could not identify the 
  marks they found. 
  Back-tracking, they found the first 
  marks near the mountains, three miles away. 
  The tracks came almost in a straight line 
  toward the cabin. They were widely spaced, 
  sometimes as much as fifty yards apart. 
  And they were the marks of an eight-
  legged beast! 
  The marks disappeared just before 
  the line of trees that surrounded John Alden’s 
  land. They did not reappear on the opposite 
  side. 
  A 
  frown 
  creased 
  Buck 
  Dixon’s 
  square face. He shivered, despite the heat. 
  “I think we’re up against something 
  too big for us, something I don’t want to go 
  up against. I’m scared,” he said at last. “But 
  there’s a man I’ve heard of who could figure 
  out the answers for us. I think we’d better go 
  to him.” 
  “And who is that?” 
  “Doc Savage,” said Buck Dixon, and 
  there was awe in his voice. 
   
   
  DOC SAVAGE 
   
  Doc Savage! The bronze giant, who, 
  with his five aides, had become world 
  famous, whose name was as well known in 
  the far regions of China and the jungles of 
  Africa, as in the skyscraper district of New 
  York. 
  There were stories of Doc Savage’s 
  almost incredible strength; of his amazing 
  scientific discoveries and dangerous exploits. 
  
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  4 
  Doc Savage had dedicated his life to aiding 
  those faced by dangers with which they could 
  not cope. His name brought fear to those 
  who sought to prey upon the unsuspecting. 
  His name was praised by thousands he had 
  saved. 
  John 
  Alden 
  paused. 
  A 
  dozen 
  pictures flashed to his mind; his memory 
  recalled a score of stories he had read. 
  Yes, John Alden conceded, Doc 
  Savage could solve this problem. But the 
  engineer thought of other things as well. 
  He thought of the scores of colonists 
  who now called Arcadia Valley their home. 
  To send for Doc Savage would be to spread 
  word that there was something to be feared. 
  John Alden was not as old as Buck 
  Dixon. He had the confidence of youth. He 
  did not like to admit he was facing a problem 
  he couldn’t solve himself. 
  He made a mistake then. 
  “Let’s wait until we have more to go 
  on,” he said. “After all, this may be something 
  we can handle. I suggest we round up a few 
  of the Indians, talk to them. They are 
  superstitious, I know. But they may be able to 
  tell us something that will help.” 
  Buck Dixon made no reply. He 
  merely raised a hand and pointed. John 
  Alden looked. 
  Tiny dots were moving on the far 
  side of the valley. They were taking a trail 
  that would lead them far from Arcadia. 
  The Indians were leaving. 
   
   
  THE MONSTER did not come again 
  that night. John Alden and Buck Dixon stood 
  watch. Neither got much sleep. 
  But the following night, the horror 
  struck. 
  It began to rain shortly after dusk. 
  The sky clouded over as the sun set. 
  John Alden stood guard first. At 
  midnight, Buck Dixon relieved him. The 
  husky man made no attempt to hide his 
  nervousness. It was thundering again. A 
  premonition of evil gripped John Alden as he 
  went to the cabin. 
  For 
  a 
  moment 
  he 
  considered 
  returning, staying with Buck Dixon until 
  daylight. Then he changed his mind. He 
  would have a cup of coffee first. He went to 
  sleep with the cup in his hand. 
  Buck Dixon crouched in an open 
  space, keeping his rifle under his slicker. He 
  felt as he had when he’d first done sentry 
  duty in the trenches. 
  The strange odor was his first 
  warning. One moment the air was pure, the 
  next, and his nostrils twitched with the 
  fearsome, foul scent. 
  Buck 
  Dixon 
  might 
  have 
  saved 
  himself. Had he run at once, he might have 
  stood a faint chance. 
  But the burly veteran did have nerve. 
  He hesitated. And almost instantly the 
  peculiar smell became strong. It sent his 
  brain racing. 
  He was able to scream once, tried to 
  get his rifle out from under his slicker. His 
  feet moved, his arms did not. The rifle 
  dropped from his hands. He started to run 
  toward the head of the valley. 
  Then The Monster came into view. 
  It was huge. It towered as tall as a 
  two-story building. And it was racing toward 
  Buck Dixon on long, spidery legs. 
  A huge spider! That was what the 
  Indians had said The Monster was—a huge, 
  bloodthirsty spider. 
  Its speed was amazing! It came 
  across the mesa as fast as a racing car could 
  move. Buck Dixon’s mind told him to stop, to 
  fall flat. 
  He could not. He rushed on toward 
  the fate that awaited him. 
  The Monster was almost upon him. It 
  slowed. 
  Two 
  enormous, 
  pincerlike 
  projections came from its mouth, reached 
  down for Buck Dixon. 
  Buck Dixon opened his mouth to 
  scream again. No sound came forth. 
   
   
  Chapter II 
  THE MONSTER KILLS 
   
  JOHN ALDEN came awake with his 
  rifle in his hands. He had the impression that 
  he was reliving a nightmare, that he was 
  hearing again Buck Dixon’s screams of two 
  nights before. 
  Then he caught a faint whiff of the 
  cloying, sickly sweet odor. He knew it was no 
  nightmare. 
  A hysterical laugh came from him. 
  Frantically he rushed outside. 
  
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  5 
  He saw The Monster just as it 
  grabbed Buck Dixon!  
  Later, John Alden tried to picture just 
  what did occur. It was all over in less than 
  five seconds. But at the time it seemed 
  horribly slow, as if he were witnessing some 
  fiendish scene in slow motion. 
  The Monster had come practically to 
  a stop. Two weird twisted legs on the front of 
  its loathsome body bent down, two pincers 
  reached out, wrapped themselves about 
  Buck Dixon’s body. 
  The burly veteran was whisked into 
  the air as if he were weightless. Then the 
  monster paused for an instant, apparently 
  savoring the feast ahead of it. Buck Dixon’s 
  arms and legs beat futilely. He was twisted 
  about, disappeared into The Monster’s maw. 
  The rifle came to John Alden’s 
  shoulder. Calmly, he pumped bullet after 
  bullet at the hideous monstrosity. 
  The crash of the rifle was echoed by 
  dull, vicious smacks as the bullets reached 
  their mark. 
  Slowly, deliberately, the spiderous 
  shape turned, ran toward John Alden. The 
  foul odor freshened. 
  Then it was that panic seized the 
  lanky engineer. He jammed fresh cartridges 
  into the rifle. He pulled the trigger as fast as 
  he could lever bullets into the barrel. 
  The bullets had no effect! 
  The rifle dropped from John Alden’s 
  hands, even as Buck Dixon had dropped his 
  weapon. 
  The Monster towered almost above 
  him. Once more the cruel pincers reached 
  out. 
  The pincers waved in the air. They 
  waved almost mockingly. The loathsome 
  beast turned. Its legs spurted across the 
  ground. 
  It headed directly for the ridge of 
  trees. As John Alden stood frozen, the huge 
  spider leaped into the air, vanished over the 
  trees. 
  John Alden fainted! 
   
   
  IT was dawn when John Alden 
  recovered consciousness. The rain had 
  stopped. His head was clear, his brain alert. 
  All sign of the hideous odor had disappeared. 
  But close to him, not a dozen feet away, 
  were the huge tracks of The Monster. 
  The lanky engineer scrambled up. 
  And now he wished he had listened more 
  closely to the story of The Monster. 
  The Indian who had told him the 
  legends had gone into much detail. John 
  Alden had laughed, had paid little attention. 
  He was not laughing now, he was trying hard 
  to recall what he had heard. 
  “For many years my people shunned 
  this valley,” the Indian had said. “Perhaps 
  they should yet.” 
  He had been an Indian educated in 
  the States. John Alden had thought it strange 
  at the time that a well-educated man could 
  believe legends that must be based on 
  superstition. That no longer seemed strange, 
  either. 
  A monster lived in the mountains. It 
  was a huge spider that lived on human 
  beings, the Indian had related. When it had 
  eaten its fill it would disappear, often for 
  years. Then it would return. 
  The Indian who had told the legend 
  had spoken seriously of mammoths and 
  other huge creatures that once had roamed 
  the earth. He had suggested the spider might 
  be a relic of some such forgotten species. 
  John Alden was no authority, but he 
  recognized that there might be a germ of 
  truth in that theory. 
  There was little chance that Buck 
  Dixon was still alive. In fact, John Alden did 
  not believe that he was. 
  The 
  lanky 
  engineer 
  was 
  quite 
  methodical. He went back to the cabin and 
  changed into dry clothes. He got his rifle, 
  oiled it, then filled his pockets with bullets. 
  Then he set out to follow the tracks. 
  Once more they led directly toward the ridge 
  of trees, vanished just at the edge. John 
  Alden looked up, estimated the height that 
  jump must have been. 
  And then he saw it—a small object, 
  clinging to the side of a tree, a tree against 
  which The Monster must have rubbed. 
  John Alden did not want to believe 
  the evidence of his eyes. But something was 
  there. 
  As the lanky engineer climbed the 
  tree, came closer to the object hanging there, 
  a faint odor became apparent. It was dim, 
  
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  6 
  scarcely discernible. It was the odor that 
  always accompanied The Monster. 
  The object hanging to the side of the 
  tree looked almost like a cane. It was 
  practically the same thickness, but not as 
  long. It had snagged against a big limb. But it 
  was not a cane, and it was not of wood. 
  John Alden forced himself to take 
  hold of it. It felt repulsive, slimy. There were 
  tiny pores along the side from which a thin, 
  oily liquid oozed. 
  It was a giant hair! And the bodies of 
  some spiders are covered with fine hair. 
  Alden 
  scrambled 
  down 
  to 
  the 
  ground. He started to throw the hair away, 
  then changed his mind. A shrewd expression 
  came to his eyes. Clutching his rifle tighter 
  than before, he ran on through the ridge of 
  trees. 
  No tracks were there. John Alden did 
  not appear discouraged. He made wide 
  circles, scouting for sign. It was a mile from 
  the ridge of trees before the next tracks came 
  into view. 
  The tracks were imbedded far down 
  in the ground, showing the force with which 
  The Monster had landed. The engineer broke 
  into a trot, eyes on the ground. 
  A dark puddle appeared close beside 
  the tracks. Hope died in John Alden. 
  The puddle was blood. And fifty feet 
  farther on, he found what was left of Buck 
  Dixon. 
  Buck Dixon’s body was horribly 
  mutilated. It had been torn open and ripped 
  from end to end. Only the face was 
  untouched. 
  John Alden wished he had not seen 
  that face. Never had he seen such agonizing 
  lines of suffering etched on human features. 
  It was almost beyond description. It made 
  him quite ill. 
  He went for a shovel, buried what 
  remained of Buck Dixon. He took care to 
  muss up the earth, to hide all trace of blood. 
  John Alden knew something of 
  anatomy. And as he’d buried the torn 
  remains of Buck Dixon, he’d realized 
  something had been missing. That thought 
  had recalled another detail of the Indian 
  legend. 
  The Indian had said the spider was 
  searching for just one thing—that when it 
  found that, it would leave the valley in peace 
  forever. 
  It was searching for the heart of a 
  bronze-haired man. 
  It had been the heart that was 
  missing from Buck Dixon’s body. Buck Dixon 
  had not been bronze-haired. 
  But Doc Savage was! 
  John 
  Alden 
  laughed, 
  almost 
  hysterically. He would take the giant hair he 
  had found, would rouse Doc Savage’s 
  interest. 
  Hurriedly, John Alden ran to pack. 
   
   
  Chapter III 
  PERIL PURSUES 
   
  JOHN ALDEN told no one where he 
  was going, or why. That did not arouse 
  comment from the colonists. The engineer 
  had made frequent trips to the United States 
  and to Washington since the homestead 
  project had started. Nor did the absence of 
  Buck Dixon cause more than idle gossip. 
  Buck Dixon had slipped away before on 
  hunting trips. 
  There was some talk about big 
  tracks being seen in the upper end of Arcadia 
  Valley. A majority merely shrugged when told 
  about them. Others put them down to a hoax. 
  The Indians had not been too pleased when 
  the settlers came. 
  Before any real inspection could be 
  made of those tracks there was another 
  heavy rain. Practically all sign of The Monster 
  was washed away. 
  Arcadia Valley was still in ignorance 
  of the horror and terror in store for it. 
  John Alden wanted to make all 
  speed possible. But he did not want to bring 
  suspicion by undue haste. He waited until he 
  reached Juneau before he hired a plane. 
  When he landed at Portland, he 
  rushed at once to a hotel. He needed a 
  night’s rest. He did not notice the big man 
  who had been lounging around the airport. 
  This man questioned the pilot who 
  had flown John Alden from Juneau. His 
  questions were casual. The pilot never knew 
  the part he played in what was to come, but 
  he did look curiously after his departing 
  visitor. 
  
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  7 
  There was a reason for that. The big 
  man looked like a prospector. He was sun- 
  and wind-burned until his skin was dark. He 
  had huge shoulders, and was as solidly built 
  as a wrestler. One ear was cauliflowered. He 
  had yellow hair that was almost bronze. 
   
   
  BARGE DEETER 
   
  But it was his feet that made him 
  outstanding. They were out of proportion to 
  his body. They were downright gigantic! They 
  dwarfed the rest of his body, and he was by 
  no means small. Yet he moved easily and 
  with unexpected swiftness. 
  He made his way to a telephone and 
  called a long-distance number. When he got 
  an answer, he said: 
  “This is Barge Deeter, chief. I got a 
  report to make.”  
  He spoke swiftly, some of the time 
  arguing. Then he hung up. 
  When John Alden took a plane for 
  San Francisco in the morning, “Barge” 
  Deeter’s huge feet were tucked only two 
  seats behind him. 
  But John Alden didn’t notice this. His 
  conscience was bothering him. He had 
  intended to merely arouse Doc Savage’s 
  interest, to let the bronze man fall a victim of 
  The Monster and save Arcadia valley. 
  Now he knew he couldn’t do that. He 
  would have to tell Doc Savage the entire 
  story, let him decide whether he would take a 
  chance on meeting the huge spider. 
  Doc Savage had faced many perils, 
  as John Alden knew, but he didn’t think the 
  bronze man had ever faced an enemy as 
  loathsome as that spider, an enemy against 
  whom bullets were harmless, and who could 
  leap over trees and disappear without a 
  trace. 
  The engineer stared unseeingly from 
  the windows of the plane. He was faced with 
  a desperate problem. 
  He had to take some action to save 
  the settlers of Arcadia valley, but he couldn’t 
  let an innocent man face terrible peril without 
  warning. But Doc Savage had to come, he 
  had to save those colonists. No one else 
  could do it. 
   
   
  AT San Francisco, Alden tried to 
  telephone Doc Savage’s office in New York. 
  There was no answer. 
  John Alden’s face became old and 
  haggard. He did not see the big man with 
  gigantic feet watching him as he left the 
  telephone booth. 
  A newsboy thrust a paper into 
  Alden’s hands. He paid for it automatically. A 
  sleeper plane for the East taxied up to the 
  runway. Grabbing his bag, he darted for it. 
  Behind him, huge feet covered 
  ground with amazing speed as Barge Deeter 
  trailed after him. 
  John Alden heard the sound of those 
  feet. His face was white and shaken as he 
  looked around. For an instant, the sound 
  reminded him of the plop The Monster’s feet 
  made in the mud. 
  He was still shaking as he took his 
  seat in the plane. He raised the newspaper to 
  cover his confusion. Headlines leaped out at 
  him: 
   
  CHICAGO MEDICS 
  TO HEAR TALK BY 
  CLARK SAVAGE, JR. 
   
  John Alden’s heart pounded. Swiftly 
  he read the story beneath: 
   
  Chicago, 
  July 
  12—(DP)—Clark 
  Savage, Jr., the famous scientist and 
  adventurer, has consented to address a 
  meeting of the Chicago Medical Association 
  here tomorrow afternoon, it was learned 
  today. 
  Savage, one of the leading medical 
  men of the world, although he is not an 
  active, practicing physician, has promised to 
  
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  8 
  speak on the subject of “The Landular 
  Theory of Super-Growth.” 
  Leading medical men here today 
  said they hoped to persuade Savage to 
  reveal 
  details 
  of 
  some 
  of 
  his 
  latest 
  experiments, which are alleged to have sur-
  passed anything yet attempted. 
  The 
  Medical 
  Association 
  was 
  fortunate in obtaining Savage as a speaker, 
  as he and his men have just returned, it was 
  learned, from one of their trips of adventure. 
  Savage, it will be recalled, is more or 
  less a man of mystery since he has never 
  been persuaded to give a press interview on 
  any of his amazing adventures. But it is 
  known that he has won the gratitude of many 
  nations, including that of the United States, 
  for his exploits. He is a man completely 
  devoid of fear, who brings to his work not 
  only an amazing scientific knowledge, but 
  also physical prowess that is said to have no 
  equal. 
  Friends have explained that this is 
  due to a rigid training regime that keeps him 
  in perfect condition. Since childhood he is 
  understood—  
   
  John Alden’s eyes gleamed. He was 
  smiling as he looked up. Doc Savage was 
  the man to combat The Monster. And he 
  would be in Chicago tomorrow. Even the 
  address of his hotel was given. 
   
   
  THE steady stare of eyes attracted 
  the engineer’s attention. He turned his head 
  suddenly. Behind him, and across the aisle, 
  was the man he had seen running after him 
  at the airport. The big man with gigantic feet. 
  The big man’s eyes dropped as John 
  Alden turned, but the engineer’s hands shook 
  with a queer, unexplainable fear. He glanced 
  down at the paper again, and received a 
  shock. 
  The item was small. Metropolitan 
  editors had been fooled too often to take 
  chances. They gave this story only a small 
  box, intimating to the reader that he was not 
  to take it too seriously. 
  But John Alden took it seriously. He 
  forgot all about the man with the big feet 
  across the aisle. The item read: 
   
   
  NEW MONSTER SEEN 
  THIS ONE IN ALASKA 
   
  Here’s another “monster” story for 
  those who like them—this time from Alaska. 
  Each year sea serpents and other fantastic 
  reptiles are reported—usually being seen 
  near some tourist resort that needs business. 
  Today, our yarn comes from Arcadia 
  Valley, the government homestead project in 
  Alaska. During a storm last night, two sober 
  (?) colonists assert and aver they saw a huge 
  shape 
  swooping 
  toward 
  them 
  in 
  the 
  darkness. They hid in a group of trees and 
  swear the “monster” leaped entirely over the 
  trees. Today, of course, they insist they 
  found the usual “gigantic footprints” that are 
  always found. The only change from the 
  usual run of monster stories was that the 
  colonists said they smelled a terrible odor, 
  but that it soon disappeared. 
   
  Barge Deeter watched John Alden’s 
  face with particular attention. Then he 
  borrowed 
  a 
  newspaper 
  from 
  a 
  fellow 
  passenger and read it carefully. 
  John Alden noticed the move. He 
  recalled that this man with big feet had been 
  at the airport in Portland. He had been 
  standing near the telephone booth in San 
  Francisco. 
  It might be coincidence, but it didn’t 
  look like it. The engineer let his eyes drift 
  over the other casually. There was a 
  suspicious bulge under the big man’s coat. 
  When the plane landed at Salt Lake 
  City, John Alden acted quickly. He was the 
  first out and the first to get his baggage. 
  There was to be a short wait before the 
  Chicago plane was ready. 
  He darted into the waiting room, 
  moved toward the washroom, then slipped 
  through a small door at the rear of the 
  building. Running swiftly, he circled until he 
  could look into a window. 
  The man with the big feet was inside, 
  looking 
  around 
  anxiously. 
  His 
  heavy 
  eyebrows were drawn down in a frown. He 
  moved to the washroom, looked in, then 
  came out with a slightly baffled look on his 
  face. 
  It was early in the morning, but a 
  sleepy newsboy dropped from a truck and 
  came across the field. He was holding the 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  9 
  papers so the headline could be read. The 
  headline said: 
   
  MONSTER SEIZES TWO IN ALASKA! 
   
  John Alden’s face went quite white. 
  He found it difficult to get his breath. His eyes 
  darted about frantically. Light flashed on a 
  small sign advising passengers that here 
  they could send telegrams. 
  The engineer stumbled into the 
  room, wrote out his message with fingers that 
  could hardly hold a pencil: 
   
  FLINT JONES 
  ARCADIA PROJECT 
  ARCADIA VALLEY ALASKA 
  AM ON WAY TO GET DOC SAVAGE STOP 
  SURE HE CAN AID US STOP DO NOT 
  DESPAIR 
  JOHN ALDEN 
   
  He found another piece of paper and 
  wrote rapidly. Then he talked persuasively to 
  the telegraph operator. His lips were set in a 
  thin, hard grin as he heard the call for the 
  Chicago plane. 
  A majority of the passengers had 
  copies of the newspaper and were reading 
  the story of The Monster with deep interest. 
  There were some exclamations of disbelief, 
  but others were arguing that such a beast 
  was quite probable. 
  The talk stopped suddenly as John 
  Alden got on the plane. Nostrils twitched. 
  Several of the passengers looked faintly sick. 
  A flush came to John Alden’s 
  features. He caught it also. Faint, but still 
  strong enough in the close quarters of the 
  cabin, he could smell the odor that always 
  came from The Monster. 
  And it came from him, from his 
  hands where they had touched the giant hair 
  that had been concealed in his bag. 
   
   
  AS motors roared, Barge Deeter 
  jumped into the cabin. His face cleared as he 
  saw John Alden there. He moved forward, 
  dropped into his seat, just as the plane 
  pivoted slowly, motors now thundering as it 
  moved for the take-off. 
  Barge Deeter caught the odor as he 
  was abreast of John Alden. For a moment 
  the big man stood quite still. Then he 
  shrieked. His shriek came even above the 
  thunderous noise of the motors. 
  He turned, jumped back toward the 
  door in the cabin. His features were fear-
  stricken. A startled stewardess caught his 
  arm and pulled him back as he tried to thrust 
  open the cabin door. The plane already was 
  leaving the ground. 
   
   
  IT was some minutes before the 
  stewardess could quiet the excitement. The 
  co-pilot came back and asked Barge Deeter 
  if he had been drinking. Other passengers 
  shrank back in their seats, more than half 
  frightened. 
  “I—I just thought at the last minute of 
  somethin’ I forgot to do,” Barge Deeter 
  explained lamely. 
  John Alden was expecting it when 
  Barge Deeter came forward a moment later 
  and dropped into the seat beside him. 
  “Y-you’ve seen it? You’ve been close 
  to it?” Barge Deeter whispered. His eyes 
  were wide and round, he wet his lips 
  feverishly. 
  John Alden nodded. 
  “I—I got the odor, I recognized it at 
  once,” Barge Deeter gasped. 
  The engineer looked at him keenly. 
  “What do you know about it?” he demanded. 
  “I—I just came from up there,” the 
  big man said. “I—I saw it once myself. I knew 
  you came from there, too. I found that out in 
  Portland. All the time we been traveling, I 
  been trying to make up my mind whether to 
  ask you about it. I didn’t want to scare you if 
  you didn’t know. But now—” 
  “I see.” John Alden sighed with relief. 
  The other’s story was logical. That would 
  explain why he had shown interest but had 
  not spoken. 
  The big man shook his head. “I—I 
  thought it was going to kill me. I was 
  prospecting up in them mountains back of 
  Arcadia when I saw it. I’m scared yet.” 
  A hunted look came into the big 
  man’s eyes, he swallowed hard. 
  “It got two last night,” John Alden 
  said bitterly. He gestured with the paper he 
  had in his hand. The details were few, but 
  they were explicit. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  10 
  Four Arcadia Valley men had been 
  on their way home. The Monster had 
  suddenly appeared. Two of the men had 
  been seized. The others escaped. So far, no 
  trace had been found of the men who had 
  been caught. 
  “I’m going to get the government to 
  work,” the big man said solemnly. 
  “And I’m going to get Doc Savage!” 
  Sudden enthusiasm was in John Alden’s 
  voice. “This is a case for him. No one else 
  can handle it.” 
  The 
  big 
  man 
  looked 
  at 
  him 
  thoughtfully. “Yeah, maybe. But that Savage 
  guy don’t go on wild-goose chases. He may 
  figure this is just a newspaper story. The 
  government won’t. They got to protect those 
  colonists.” 
  “Doc Savage will believe me,” John 
  Alden said. “I’ve got proof.” 
  “Proof?” The other was skeptical. 
  “I found a hair from The Monster’s 
  body,” the engineer said. 
  Barge Deeter’s mouth formed a big 
  “O.” 
  Little was said from there on to 
  Chicago. Each man seemed intent on his 
  thoughts. 
  As the plane circled for a landing, 
  John Alden looked out with interest. Another 
  plane was dropping to the airport. It was a 
  big, speedy ship of unusual type. 
  John Alden didn’t know it, but Doc 
  Savage had just arrived to address the 
  Chicago Medical Association. Nor did John 
  Alden know that he was never to talk to Doc 
  Savage, was never to tell him of the horror 
  he had seen in Arcadia Valley. 
  But the engineer did see the bronze 
  man. Doc Savage was standing beside his 
  ship as the transport plane landed. John 
  Alden dropped to the ground, started to run 
  toward him. 
  A heavy, pungent odor, foul and 
  sickly sweet, suddenly filled the air. It 
  seemed to center about John Alden. 
  The engineer threw one hand to his 
  throat. His tongue protruded as his eyes 
  receded in his head. He tried to speak. He 
  could not. It was as if the odor had stricken 
  him dumb. 
  He took one step; two, before he 
  crumpled. He was dead when the closest 
  bystander reached his side. 
  Chapter IV 
  DOC TAKES CHARGE 
   
  BARGE DEETER was right behind 
  Alden. The tan seemed to have left the self-
  styled prospector’s face. He appeared pale. 
  A crowd gathered quickly. 
  “Get a doctor!” some one shouted. 
  An attendant heard the cry. A score 
  of doctors were on hand to greet Doc 
  Savage. The attendant ignored them. He 
  headed directly for the bronze man. 
  Doc Savage was already striding 
  toward the group. It wasn’t until he came 
  close to other men that his immense size 
  became apparent. When he was away from 
  them the symmetry of his development, the 
  perfect proportion of his build, made him 
  seem of no more than ordinary height. 
  Doc was a giant of bronze. His 
  corded muscles meshed under his skin in a 
  manner which made their tremendous size 
  scarcely noticeable, except for the tendons 
  on his hands, which were like cables. 
  But the most compelling thing about 
  the bronze man was his eyes. They were 
  strange eyes, like pools of flake gold, 
  hypnotically compelling in their power. They 
  were stirred continuously, as if a wind were 
  blowing within them. Bronze hair, only a 
  shade darker than his skin, fitted close to his 
  head. 
  The crowd parted as Doc strode to 
  John Alden’s body. Doc leaned over. He 
  didn’t use a stethoscope. His sensitive 
  fingers could telegraph to his brain signs of 
  life that even a stethoscope would miss. He 
  ran his hands quickly over the body. Then he 
  turned John Alden over. 
  Two physicians, members of the 
  welcoming group, made an examination. One 
  was using a stethoscope. Neither seemed to 
  find anything that gave him information. 
  Doc Savage straightened slowly. 
  Then there came an eerie, trilling sound. It 
  welled up and pervaded the air, tuneful, yet 
  tuneless. It was something Doc did, almost 
  unconsciously, when he encountered a 
  problem of great importance, or when he was 
  surprised. 
  Doc’s nostrils dilated. There was still 
  the presence of that repulsive sweetness in 
  the air. It was slightly less than when the 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  11 
  plane first stopped. But it was strongest 
  about the body of John Alden. 
   
   
  BARGE DEETER stood at the edge 
  of the crowd. He had stopped dabbing at his 
  nose. The crowd was so thick that Deeter 
  couldn’t have gotten to Doc if he’d wanted to. 
  Anyway, he didn’t try. 
  Deeter looked behind him. Airport 
  attendants were going about their work. Two 
  attendants were hauling baggage and airmail 
  from the belly of the transport. They looked 
  around them, sniffed into the baggage 
  compartment. An odor like that which hung 
  about the body of John Alden was there. 
  One attendant coughed. But he 
  didn’t say anything. He trundled a truck 
  toward the administration building. Barge 
  Deeter followed, his big feet shuffling along 
  silently. He looked back once or twice, but 
  Doc Savage had not moved. That seemed to 
  satisfy Deeter. There was something like a 
  smirk on his face. 
  All the bags were lined up at the door 
  of the building. Barge Deeter worked fast. He 
  handed the porter a stub and a ten-dollar bill. 
  The porter was apparently so surprised he 
  did not notice that the big man picked up two 
  bags. One of them bore the initials “J. A.” 
  which certainly did not stand for Barge 
  Deeter. 
  Barge lost no time. He walked 
  toward Cicero Avenue with his deceptively 
  swift gait. He looked behind him a couple of 
  times. The first time there was a pleased 
  expression on his face. The second time the 
  expression was entirely different. Barge 
  Deeter began to run. 
  An odd, barking roar welled up 
  behind him. A beast came toward him 
  rapidly, one that would have given an 
  anthropologist a year of study. And still he 
  would have been baffled. 
  The face was not unpleasant, if you 
  go in for gorillas. To Barge Deeter, it looked 
  like the worst traits of an ape, a chimpanzee, 
  a gorilla and a baboon, all wrapped up in one 
  furry body. The thing barked in apparent 
  anger and raced along behind him. 
  Perspiration broke out on Barge 
  Deeter’s face. He almost dropped his bags. 
  But not quite. He tore along, a wild look of 
  fear in his eyes. 
  But the what-is-it could run faster 
  than he. Barge Deeter breathed a huge sigh 
  of relief then. The thing went right past him 
  without so much as a glance. Barge Deeter 
  slowed down to a walk. 
  That 
  was 
  a 
  mistake. 
  With 
  a 
  squealing grunt, the oddest-looking piece of 
  porcine meat he had ever seen tore between 
  his legs, headed for the ape. Barge went flat 
  on his back. 
  He thought he was really going crazy 
  then. There seemed to be a third member of 
  this strange parade. A dapper, foppish-
  looking man, dressed up to the last minute of 
  sartorial 
  elegance, 
  tore 
  out 
  of 
  the 
  administration building door. He was waving 
  a sword in his hands and screaming about a 
  side of bacon. 
  “I’ll cut that carnsarned pig of yours 
  into pork chops!” he yelled. “You better keep 
  him away from Chemistry, you ape!” 
  “You touch a bristle on Habeas 
  Corpus’s back, you shyster, and I’ll take you 
  apart, brief by brief!” a high, childish voice 
  yelled from behind the fashion plate. 
   
   
  HABEAS CORPUS 
   
  BARGE DEETER rolled over and 
  looked. Then he got up and began to run 
  again. The newest arrival looked almost 
  exactly 
  like the 
  ape. 
  Only 
  bigger. A 
  tremendous array of large white teeth 
  showed in a mouth that almost split his head 
  in two. 
  The head itself seemed to disappear 
  entirely behind the mouth. The small eyes 
  were nearly invisible in deep pits of gristle. 
  The man waddled rather than walked. He 
  appeared momentarily on the verge of taking 
  to all fours. 
  The apelike man in reality was 
  Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, 
  whose ability as an industrial chemist had put 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  12 
  him very much at tops in the world of 
  science. His friends called him “Monk.” 
   
   
  "Monk" is the chemist of Doc 
  Savage's little band of fighters. 
  You couldn't tell from looking at 
  him, for he looks more like the 
  missing link, as his companion, 
  Ham, would put it, than anything 
  else. 
  But Monk is a chemist, and a 
  good one. He is also a fighter—
  and if anything, a better fighter 
  than a chemist. 
  Moreover, he's one of Doc's 
  companions—and that's enough 
  to stamp any man as the best in 
  manhood! 
   
  The 
  foppish-looking 
  figure 
  who 
  preceded 
  him 
  was 
  Brigadier 
  General 
  Theodore Marley Brooks, better known as 
  “Ham,” one of the most astute lawyers ever 
  to be graduated from Harvard. 
  Monk and Ham were two of Doc 
  Savage’s most trusted aids. They seemed 
  eternally on the point of mortal combat with 
  each other. They had even adopted pets that 
  added fuel to the conflict. 
  Now Monk reached out arms that 
  almost touched the ground, dived for the 
  lawyer. 
  “Stick a pin in Habeas, will you!” he 
  shouted. “Make him think Chemistry did it 
  just to start something! Why, you ingrown 
  process server, I’ll—” 
  Ham danced around, jabbing a 
  sword, which really was the core of a 
  dandified cane he carried. He appeared just 
  about to nick the apelike Monk. But Monk 
  wasn’t looking at him. 
   
   
  Brigadier 
  General 
  Theodore 
  Marley Brooks' squabble with Monk 
  dates back to the World War when 
  Ham, as a joke, taught Monk some 
  French words that were highly 
  insulting, telling him they would curry 
  the favor of a French General. Monk 
  tried the 
  words 
  out, 
  and 
  was 
  promptly 
  clapped 
  into 
  the 
  guardhouse. After Monk's release, 
  Ham was haled up on a charge of 
  stealing hams, and the evidence was 
  found in his quarters. Ham denied 
  the theft, and his agile tongue—Ham 
  being a lawyer by profession—got 
  him out of the scrape. Somebody 
  stole the hams and planted the 
  evidence; 
  and 
  Ham 
  had 
  his 
  suspicions, for Monk had been 
  entirely too innocent about the 
  matter. 
   
   
  “Habeas!” he yelled. “Daggonit it, get 
  away from those car tracks!” 
  Ham, stopping his dancing looked 
  toward the street. In the chase across the 
  traffic of Cicero Avenue, the pig, Habeas 
  Corpus, had stumbled directly in the path of a 
  street car. Chemistry, the ape, turned to see 
  if the pig was still chasing him. Then the 
  monkey did a strange thing. 
  Chattering in excitement, he raced 
  back, scooped up the pig in his furry arms 
  and leaped from the tracks just as the street 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  13 
  car rumbled by. He lumbered back, still 
  carrying the porker, chattering to it like a 
  mother. 
   
   
  CHEMISTRY 
   
  Monk sighed. “Okay,” he said. “That 
  danged ape does have some uses. Let’s go 
  find Doc.” 
  Barge Deeter drifted from sight. 
   
   
  THERE was an excited group milling 
  around the bronze man. Some of the men 
  were physicians whose names were known 
  all over the world. One of them tugged at his 
  distinguished-looking goatee and shook his 
  head. 
  “Most extraordinary,” he muttered. 
  “There is no apparent cause of death. It 
  might be an ordinary heart attack, but—” 
  He looked again at some of his 
  colleagues. Their glances, too, showed 
  bafflement. The contorted expression of fear 
  and horror on the dead face of John Alden 
  did not back up a theory of a mere heart 
  attack. 
  The physician with the goatee had 
  examined the body as closely as had Doc 
  Savage. But Doc Savage did not seem 
  baffled. He looked up as Monk and Ham 
  approached. 
  “An autopsy should be performed,” 
  he clipped. “My two aides will stay with the 
  body until after the meeting of the Merical 
  Association.” 
  A squealing grunt came suddenly 
  from the ground near John Alden’s body. 
  Habeas Corpus stood there, his long, saillike 
  ears erect. The pig stared at the body, nose 
  quivering. Then he squealed again, and fled. 
  Monk raced after him. He had to carry his pet 
  all the way back. There was something about 
  the body that Habeas did not like at all. 
  Chemistry’s reaction was just the 
  opposite. 
  He 
  appeared 
  fascinated. 
  He 
  lumbered over, sniffed avidly. He tried to pick 
  the body up in his arms. 
  Ham pulled the ape away. 
  When an ambulance came, Ham 
  gave the driver the address of a small, 
  private hospital near the University of 
  Chicago campus. It was an exclusive 
  hospital, devoted largely to research cases. 
  Doc was a member of the board of directors. 
  The ambulance roared from the field, 
  down Cicero Avenue, turned east on Garfield 
  Boulevard. Two taxicabs left the field directly 
  behind the ambulance. 
  Monk and Ham were paying no 
  attention to traffic. They sat in the back of the 
  ambulance with the corpse. Habeas Corpus 
  had kicked up such a fuss they had let him 
  ride in front with the driver. But Chemistry 
  stayed close beside the body, apparently 
  fascinated by it. 
  “If he doesn’t quit mooning over that 
  corpse, I’m goin’ to throw him out,” Monk 
  growled. “He gives me the jitters.” 
  Ham snorted. “At least Chemistry 
  knows enough to realize there’s something 
  screwy some place,” he gibed. “Too bad you 
  don’t belong to the same simian tribe.”  
  Monk started to answer that one. But 
  his gaze wandered to the back window of the 
  ambulance. He stiffened. 
  “Trouble coming,” he said. 
  Ham followed his gaze. There wasn’t 
  anything peculiar about the two cabs behind 
  them. But there was a queer intensity of the 
  faces of the men in them. Doc’s aids had 
  seen that kind of intensity on the faces be-
  fore. Usually just before shooting started. 
   
   
  HAM noticed that the ambulance 
  was pulling up to a red light. 
  The two taxicabs split. One rolled up 
  on the right of the ambulance. The other 
  stopped on the left side. A revolver shot split 
  the air. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  14 
  Monk howled; he always did when 
  fighting started. Then the hairy chemist 
  leaped out of the ambulance. As he moved, 
  he whipped a queer-looking weapon from a 
  specially constructed shoulder holster. 
  It resembled an oversize automatic 
  pistol, fitted with an intricate drum magazine, 
  perfected by Doc. The rate of fire was so 
  rapid that the roar was like the hoarse song 
  of a gigantic bass fiddle. The slugs it fired did 
  not kill. They were “mercy” bullets, charged 
  with a drug which brought only quick 
  unconsciousness. 
  Monk hit the street running. Men 
  were piling from both cabs. The chemist 
  sprayed mercy bullets from his machine-
  pistol. Ham took the other side, cut loose with 
  another machine-pistol. Hard-faced men 
  whipped around, blazed away with heavy 
  automatics. 
  The mercy bullets seemed to have 
  no effect on the gangsters. 
  “Aim for their heads!” Ham shouted. 
  “They’ve got bullet-proof clothing on!” 
  Monk raised his gun muzzle higher. 
  But the men were piling into the ambulance. 
  Suddenly the ambulance shot ahead into a 
  snarl of traffic. It got across the street, 
  whipped down the boulevard. 
  Monk and Ham stood startled. 
  A low, guttural noise came from 
  nearby. Monk’s big mouth dropped open. 
  “Jumping 
  Jehoshaphat!” 
  he 
  squealed. 
  The noise came from Chemistry. In 
  the confusion, the anthropoid had climbed 
  out the back of the ambulance. In his arms 
  he held John Alden’s body. The open door of 
  one of the taxicabs offered a haven. So 
  Chemistry had clambered into that. 
  A big cop was lumbering across the 
  street. A lot of questions seemed in the 
  offing. Ham jumped behind the wheel of the 
  cab. Monk piled in the rear with Chemistry. 
  Ham jammed down the accelerator, 
  shot down the boulevard. 
  The cop yelled and commandeered 
  the nearest car. But he couldn’t keep up with 
  the taxi. He soon lost it. 
  “Well, we’ve still got the body,” Ham 
  said evenly. 
  “Yeah,” Monk squealed. “But they’ve 
  got my pig. We’ve gotta get those guys!” 
  Ham made it known the gangsters 
  were welcome to the pig as far as he was 
  concerned. Then he kept his mind on his 
  driving. He had to concentrate to shut out 
  Monk’s opinion of all lawyers in general, and 
  Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks in 
  particular. 
   
   
  THE campus of the University of 
  Chicago 
  sprawls 
  around 
  the 
  spacious 
  Midway in a dozen or more groups of vine-
  covered buildings. On the outskirts of the 
  campus, near the Cottage Grove side, was a 
  building set apart from the rest. It was 
  surrounded by large trees. It had an air of 
  leisure and comfort. 
  Ham wheeled the borrowed cab into 
  the darkened driveway. Apparently, they 
  were expected. Doc would have called, 
  anyway, to make arrangements. A very 
  pretty, red-haired nurse met them at the 
  door. 
  Monk immediately forgot his quarrel 
  with Ham. He bowed sweepingly and grinned 
  in a way he fondly hoped would win approval. 
  The nurse looked only at Ham. Monk 
  glowered. 
  Two attendants came from the door 
  with a stretcher. They took charge of John 
  Alden’s body. Monk stood back, holding the 
  door open for the nurse. 
  “We 
  want 
  this 
  anthropoid 
  psychoanalyzed,” Ham said calmly, nodding 
  toward Monk. “It probably is not safe to have 
  him at large.” 
  Monk’s scowl grew darker. “Why, 
  you shyster, you’re a menace to everything in 
  or out of a courtroom!” he shrilled. 
  “See,” Ham said, “he has delusions 
  all the time.”  
  Monk didn’t look very dangerous. 
  The nurse smiled and went on ahead. 
  Probably she was accustomed to peculiar 
  cases in the hospital for research. In the 
  corridor, she met another nurse. This one 
  was evidently a supervisor. 
  “Mr. Savage phoned,” she said. “He 
  wants the body left in the receiving room until 
  he arrives. I’m going in there now.” 
  Ham turned around. 
  “Where has Chemistry gone—” he 
  started.  
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  15 
  A piercing scream interrupted him. 
  The scream came from the receiving room. 
  Monk and Ham plunged toward the door, 
  raced into the room. 
  The supervisor lay on the floor. 
  Otherwise the room was empty! 
  Monk grabbed a washcloth from a 
  basin in the wall. Cold water quickly revived 
  the nurse. 
  “T-that monkey,” she moaned. “I saw 
  him right in front of me. Then everything went 
  black.” 
  Monk and Ham rushed outside. They 
  could hear an automobile speeding away. 
  The body of John Alden was gone. And so 
  was Chemistry. 
   
   
  Chapter V 
  SEEING DOUBLE 
   
  “THAT danged ape of yours has 
  gone too far this time!” Monk howled. 
  Ham stopped and listened. “Don’t be 
  an idiot!” he snapped. “Chemistry can’t drive 
  a car. Even you know that much.” 
  “He could have hauled the body to 
  the gangsters’ car,” Monk countered. 
  Ham left the driveway, began to poke 
  about in the bushes. “No,” he insisted. “If 
  Chemistry did steal the body, we’ll find him 
  around here somewhere.” 
  Monk tramped through shrubbery on 
  the other side of the drive. A sudden yell of 
  surprise came from Ham. There was a frantic 
  threshing in the bushes. Monk started to race 
  toward the lawyer. But Ham, indignant, met 
  him in the middle of the driveway. 
  He held Habeas Corpus by his two 
  large ears. 
  “He was going to bite me!” Ham 
  shouted. “I’ll cut him into pork chops right 
  now!” 
  “Put him down, you tailor’s dummy!” 
  Monk roared. “His being here proves it was 
  the gangsters who got the body. The same 
  ones that stole the ambulance. Habeas was 
  in the ambulance.” 
  “It’s time we notified Doc—” Ham 
  began. He broke off. A tiny light had flashed 
  on within an opalescent ring on his finger. 
  The 
  lawyer 
  whipped 
  a 
  small 
  earphone from the breast pocket of his coat. 
  It was so small that it fitted inside the ear like 
  a plug. The wire that ran from it was as fine 
  as a silken thread. It connected compact 
  pocket batteries with a miniature short-wave 
  set. 
  “Monk! Ham!” came Doc’s clear 
  voice. “The police have reports of a large 
  monkey riding on top of a speeding 
  ambulance. What has happened?” 
  Ham gulped. He hardly cared to give 
  the report he had to make. But he fished out 
  a tiny microphone, spoke swiftly. 
  “Get in the taxicab, drive west 
  through Washington Park,” Doc clipped. 
  “Turn north on Wabash. You should overtake 
  the ambulance. I will keep in touch.” 
  Monk leaped to the wheel of the cab, 
  it whoomed down the driveway into the 
  street. 
  The 
  ride 
  through 
  the 
  winding 
  roadways of Washington Park made Ham’s 
  hair stand on end. They plunged into 
  Wabash Avenue at a sixty-mile clip, headed 
  north. 
  “The ambulance is now on Calumet 
  Avenue, going north,” came Doc’s voice in 
  the tiny earphone. They are apparently—
  wait—” 
  There 
  was 
  an 
  interruption. 
  “Pedestrians report that the ape is no longer 
  riding on top of the machine. He is driving it.” 
  Monk had his own earphone set in 
  operation by then. 
  “Something’s 
  wrong, 
  radically 
  wrong!” he howled. He poured all the power 
  into the motor that the cab could muster. 
  The ambulance loomed ahead. Monk 
  bore down on it like a streak. “Get ready to 
  jump over and stop it!” he roared. 
  But it wasn’t necessary for Ham to 
  act. The ambulance suddenly swerved to the 
  right, crashed into an electric-light pole. Ham 
  and Monk were out of the taxi in a single 
  leap. The dim form of Chemistry was 
  slumped over the wheel. Ham gasped. 
  Chemistry’s wrists were tied tightly to 
  the steering wheel. He had no alternative but 
  to sit in the driver’s seat. The gangsters had 
  ducked out, left the ape alone in the 
  careening ambulance. 
   
   
  HAM untied the ropes that bound the 
  monkey. Chemistry reeled to his feet 
  groggily. Sirens screamed, two radio cars 
  pulled up, cops pouring from them. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  16 
  “Who was driving that ambulance?” a 
  red-faced sergeant bellowed. 
  “Apparently that was,” Monk said 
  dryly, pointing to Chemistry. 
  The cop’s face got redder, he 
  swelled with rage. 
  Ham broke the tension. 
  “Wait!” the lawyer snapped. “Doc’s 
  calling.” The red light in his opalescent ring 
  had flashed. “Doc Savage wants us to come 
  to the hotel right away, and bring the papers.” 
  “Gee.” The cop looked crestfallen. “I 
  didn’t know you were Doc Savage’s men. We 
  got standing orders to coöperate with you 
  any time.” 
  “Let’s go!” rapped Monk impatiently. 
  “Chemistry!” Ham called. He looked 
  around, and groaned in disgust. Chemistry 
  had disappeared again. 
  Ordinarily, they would have stayed to 
  search for the ape. But Doc’s voice had 
  sounded urgent. They figured they could pick 
  up Chemistry later. They jumped into the taxi, 
  sped across town, stopping only to buy the 
  newspapers Doc had asked for. Ham read 
  them aloud to Monk. It was immediately 
  apparent why Doc had said to get them. 
  City editors are pretty hard-boiled 
  about freak-of-nature stories. They have 
  been fooled too often. They had been hard-
  boiled at first about The Monster of Alaska. 
  They weren’t any more. There was a note of 
  awe in the news columns: 
   
  “MONSTER” IN ALASKA 
  KILLS U.S. OFFICIAL! 
   
  Fairbanks, 
  Alaska—(Special)—
  Stories of a weird monster, perhaps of 
  prehistoric origin, appeared verified today in 
  the killing of Flint Jones, government 
  supervisor at Arcadia Valley. The body of 
  Jones, horribly mangled, was found near his 
  cabin. Beside the body were huge footprints 
  of a type that defied classification. 
  Neighbors 
  of 
  Jones 
  said 
  they 
  believed 
  they 
  heard 
  a 
  scream 
  about 
  midnight, but were not sure because it was 
  storming. Later, some asserted they smelled 
  a strange odor at about the same time. 
  Two other discoveries have the 
  authorities baffled. One was a telegram 
  found in what was left of Jones’s clothing. It 
  was from one of the government engineers 
  who have been at Arcadia, John Alden, and 
  was sent from Salt Lake City, Utah. It said 
  Alden was on his way to see Doc Savage, 
  the famous scientist and adventurer. 
  The 
  other 
  discovery 
  was 
  the 
  mangled body of an engineer named Buck 
  Dixon. Dogs discovered his body, terribly 
  torn, in a crude grave. At first it was believed 
  Alden might have murdered Dixon, who was 
  his partner. Credence is now given to the 
  theory that The Monster also killed Dixon. 
   
  “Goshamighty!” Monk said. “I’ll bet 
  that’s what Doc wants us for. We’re going to 
  fight The Monster.” 
   
   
  NOT so many blocks away, another 
  voice, as childlike as Monk’s, also was 
  speaking. In fact, the voice sounded exactly 
  like Monk’s. The speaker had been practicing 
  for some hours to get just that effect. He 
  appeared an exact counterpart of the hairy 
  chemist. 
  “I wonder what that Doc Savage has 
  found out,” he shrilled. 
  Beside him, a wasp-waisted fashion 
  plate leaned over a tiny radio. Even a close 
  acquaintance would have taken him for Ham. 
  He spoke in the cultured tones used by the 
  dapper lawyer. 
  “Don’t let it worry you,” he said. “The 
  boss is smart. He even figured Doc would be 
  talking to them by radio. That’s why he had 
  us ready.” 
  The two went into the corridor. Doc, 
  they knew, had taken a large suite two floors 
  above. They were in a big, fashionable hotel 
  overlooking Lake Michigan. They walked up, 
  instead of taking the elevator. When they got 
  on Doc’s floor, the one who looked like Monk 
  began to yell shrilly. 
  “Why, you skinny imitation of a law 
  book, when I get that pig back, I’m going to 
  let him use your wardrobe for a sty!” 
  “Shut up, you missing link!” snapped 
  Ham’s double. “Whoever’s got him has had 
  him past one meal time already. I’ll bet 
  they’ve got indigestion.” 
  The imitation was perfect. “Monk” 
  turned the knob of Doc’s door without 
  hesitation. He did just as Monk would have 
  done. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  17 
  A faint, sweet, cloying odor came to 
  their nostrils as they entered the room. It 
  wasn’t strong, just persistent. It seemed to 
  come from a slender, oblong box on a table. 
  Doc was standing by a window. He turned as 
  the two men came in. 
  The fake Monk yelled excitedly. He 
  pulled one hand from a pocket, hurled the 
  contents of that hand directly at Doc. A thin, 
  white powder covered the bronze man’s face. 
  Doc seemed to jerk erect. His flake 
  gold eyes whirled peculiarly. He took a slow 
  step forward. Then he fell. He went down on 
  his face. 
  “Ham” laughed triumphantly. He 
  grabbed the oblong box from the table and 
  raced toward the door where his companion 
  stood waiting. They flicked off the light and 
  opened the door. 
  The real Monk and Ham arrived at 
  that moment. 
   
   
  MONK’S hand was already on the 
  doorknob when the door was snatched open. 
  He was lumbering forward at the time, and 
  plunged on into the room. He collided with 
  moving bodies. 
  The hairy chemist was far from slow-
  witted. He knew instantly that something was 
  wrong. He yelled loud and lustily and swung 
  with both fists. The more noise Monk made, 
  the better he could fight. 
  Ham’s sword cane came out. He 
  leaped into the darkened room, jabbing 
  carefully, afraid he might nick Monk, as the 
  end of the sword was tipped with a sleep-
  producing drug. 
  He tripped over struggling feet, went 
  to the floor. The sword cane dropped from 
  his hand. Ham muttered to himself. Fighting 
  in the dark was not his idea of fun. He 
  wiggled back, leaped up and flicked on the 
  lights. 
  The look of amazement on Monk’s 
  face at that instant was something Ham long 
  remembered. Monk was so surprised he 
  forgot to fight. For it looked to him as if he 
  was fighting himself. 
  The fake Monk grabbed for his 
  pocket again. A second time white powder 
  flared out. It caught the hairy chemist 
  squarely in the face. He dropped as if he had 
  been shot. 
  Ham had tangled with his own 
  counterpart. And the counterfeit lawyer was 
  putting up a good scrap. Ham would have 
  won, but a hand came around his face from 
  behind. White powder was held over his 
  nose. He, too, went down. 
  The masqueraders did not hesitate. 
  They 
  were 
  breathing 
  heavily, 
  eyes 
  frightened. They had not bargained on a 
  general battle. The fake Ham holding the 
  oblong box carefully, the men raced away. 
  Doc rose calmly from the floor. 
  He had not been unconscious at any 
  time. He had detected the falsity of his 
  visitors, had popped an oxygen tablet in his 
  mouth, expecting them to use gas. They 
  hadn’t used the ordinary type of gas, but the 
  powder was merely another form. But, 
  peculiarly, he had let the battle go on. 
  Now Doc gave Monk and Ham a 
  whiff of oxygen from a tiny tube. They 
  regained consciousness almost instantly. 
  Monk struggled to his feet, his tiny eyes red 
  with rage. 
  “Where are they? Let me at ‘em!” he 
  bellowed. 
  Doc shook his head. 
  “But why?” Monk wailed plaintively. 
  Habeas Corpus, who had followed 
  Monk and Ham into the room, squealed 
  suddenly. He had approached a closet door. 
  Now he turned, raced frantically from that 
  door, the bristles on his back quivering. 
  Doc opened the closet door, took out 
  a package. It appeared identical with the one 
  seized by the invaders. 
  “I 
  think 
  this 
  is 
  what 
  frightens 
  Habeas,” he explained. “It has the same odor 
  about it that was about the man at the airport. 
  Also, this is what our visitors were after.” 
  “But what—” stammered Ham. 
  “As you may have guessed,” the 
  bronze man went on, “John Alden was the 
  man killed at the airport. He was on his way 
  to see us, coming from Arcadia Valley, where 
  a monster has been reported. He evidently 
  feared he might be killed, so he wrote me a 
  letter from Salt Lake City, telling me what he 
  knew. He also sent this package.” 
  Ham’s face lightened. “So you let 
  those men have a dummy package, to fool 
  them into believing they had what they’d 
  been sent for.” 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  18 
  “They were merely dupes, and 
  probably did not even know what they were 
  after,” Doc said. “When the one who sent 
  them finds they have failed, he may come 
  himself, and we may learn what this is all 
  about.” 
  Monk nodded sagely. 
  “But what is in the package, Doc?” 
  “A hair, evidently from The Monster,” 
  said the bronze man quietly. 
  Ham’s breath came in sharply. “Oh, 
  boy!” he said happily. “Let’s hope it draws 
  more visitors. I want to know why any one 
  here should want that hair.” 
   
   
  Chapter VI 
  A TRAP 
   
  HAM would have been surprised to 
  know just how soon his wish for visitors was 
  to be gratified. As Doc explained the contents 
  of John Alden’s letter, two sets of visitors 
  appeared in the lobby below. 
  The first visitor was alone. He was 
  remarkable particularly for the amazing size 
  of his feet. Barge Deeter timidly asked the 
  clerk if Doc was registered at the hotel. The 
  clerk nodded. He had been instructed to 
  admit any visitors who might call. 
  Barge Deeter seemed exceptionally 
  nervous. He had the air of one who feels he 
  is being watched. 
  Then the other visitors arrived. They 
  came even before the clerk could call Doc’s 
  room. There were three of them. They were 
  hard-eyed, typical gangsters. 
  “Doc Savage here?” snarled the 
  leader. 
  Barge Deeter whirled at the voice. 
  His sun-tanned skin seemed to pale. He 
  ducked low and began to run. 
  A startled shout came from the gang-
  leader. He pulled out a gun. His companions 
  did the same. They took out after Barge 
  Deeter. The man with the big feet was 
  dancing behind huge pillars in the lobby, 
  desperately seeking cover. 
  The clerk grabbed a phone, got 
  Doc’s room. He stuttered a description of 
  what was happening. 
  The sound that came to the clerk 
  made him think he hadn’t gotten his 
  connection. It was a weird, trilling sound, that 
  didn’t seem to come from the phone at all. 
  Guests 
  were 
  scurrying 
  in 
  all 
  directions in the lobby. Barge Deeter was 
  using some of them as shields. So far, he 
  had managed to keep from giving the 
  gunmen a fair shot. 
  The clerk expected Doc to appear 
  from the elevators. His eyes suddenly tried to 
  pop from his head. 
  With Monk and Ham at his heels, the 
  bronze man dived in through the front door. 
  He made directly for the gangsters. 
  The clerk never did know how Doc 
  did it, but the explanation was absurdly 
  simple. He had expected the elevators to be 
  watched, had thrown a long, silken cord out 
  his hotel window. The cord had furnished 
  speedy transportation to the street. 
  The gangleader was the first of the 
  visitors to spot the bronze man. “Damn,” he 
  shouted, “that devil is here already!” 
  Guests dropped to the floor. The 
  gangleader squeezed the trigger of his gun 
  as rapidly as he could. Doc drifted across the 
  marble floor as if he didn’t notice the shots. 
  His flake gold eyes whirled strangely. 
  “I got him, Doc!” a hard voice said 
  from behind the gangster. 
  The gangleader spun. He either 
  didn’t know Doc’s ability at ventriloquism, or 
  he had forgotten it. The turn was fatal. Doc 
  was upon him; one hand floated out, 
  snapped against the back of the other’s 
  head, paralyzed nerve centers there. The 
  gunman went down. 
  Doc 
  whirled 
  toward 
  the 
  clerk, 
  signaled. The clerk nodded. The lights went 
  out. 
  Monk was behind a pillar, almost on 
  top of a second gunman. He lunged forward, 
  huge fist swinging. The man turned end over 
  end. Ham had circled the third killer, grinning 
  as he jabbed with his sleep-inducing sword 
  cane. The sword cane struck its mark. 
  When the lights snapped back on a 
  minute later, the three gangsters had 
  disappeared. So had most of the guests. But 
  cowering back in one corner, was Barge 
  Deeter. 
  “D-did 
  they 
  get 
  away?” 
  Deeter 
  asked. 
  “They won’t bother you any more,” 
  Doc said. He didn’t explain that the three 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  19 
  thugs were bound and tied in another room. 
  They would be unconscious for several 
  hours. When they recovered, they would be 
  on their way to a private hospital in Upstate 
  New York, known as Doc’s “Crime College.” 
  There they would undergo a delicate brain 
  operation. They would forget their criminal 
  tendencies, return to the world as normal 
  men. 
  “You wish to see me?” Doc asked 
  calmly. 
  Barge Deeter gulped. Events had 
  moved almost too swiftly for him. “Y-your 
  room,” he whispered. “I-I’ll talk then.” 
  And the man with big feet did talk. 
  He babbled a story of seeing The Monster in 
  Alaska. He said he had been afraid to come 
  forward after John Alden had been killed. 
  He said he overheard the address of 
  the campus hospital and had gone there. 
  When the gangsters stole the body, he had 
  followed. He quit following the ambulance 
  when the gang had taken the body out in a 
  dark part of Calumet Avenue. 
  “And what was your interest?” Ham 
  put in quietly.  
  “There’s 
  something 
  strange, 
  something queer,” Barge Deeter shrilled. 
  “Why should John Alden be killed here? How 
  was he killed?” 
  Doc said nothing. Monk shifted 
  slightly. “If the body hadn’t been stolen, we 
  would have at least found out how he was 
  killed,” he said. 
  “There was that odor at the airport 
  that I smelled when I saw The Monster once 
  in Alaska.” Deeter shuddered. “It was the 
  same thing. I can’t understand it.” 
  “As if,” Ham filled in, “The Monster 
  had reached clear to Chicago to claim a 
  victim.” 
  Barge Deeter nodded. “Exactly. For 
  that reason I knew the body was important. I 
  knew if Doc Savage could examine it, he 
  might learn something vital that might help 
  those still in Alaska.” 
  “I think that is probably correct,” the 
  bronze man said. 
  “And so—” prompted Monk. 
  “I know where the body was taken,” 
  Barge Deeter said simply. 
  “We will go there,” Doc decided. 
   
   
  MONK placed the oblong package in 
  his pocket before he left the room. Doc had 
  said it was important, that it might bring 
  visitors. The chemist did not intend that it be 
  lost. 
  A girl started to enter the hotel just 
  as the four men left it. Only Monk appeared 
  to notice her. Monk always noticed girls, 
  particularly if they were pretty. 
  She was blonde, and not large. But 
  she had curves in the right places, and 
  features that would have sold extra copies of 
  any magazine. She seemed interested in the 
  four men. 
  Monk soon forgot her. Barge Deeter 
  was leading them over a stretch of wasteland 
  that bordered the lake, and the going was 
  rough. It was a weed-tangled section. In the 
  center of it there was a ramshackle frame 
  building. The group stumbled over the 
  uneven ground in the dark. 
  “There’s 
  one 
  light 
  on,” 
  Ham 
  whispered. “See? There’s a guy sitting at a 
  table.” 
  Ham turned to see what Doc’s 
  reaction was. Doc was gone. Barge Deeter, 
  in the lead, did not notice. 
  Cautiously, the group crept to the 
  house, peered into the lighted room. Neither 
  Monk nor Ham had ever seen the man sitting 
  at the table. Barge Deeter said he had never 
  seen him either. Monk tried the door. It was 
  not locked. The room in which they had seen 
  the light was just to the right of the hallway. A 
  faint, scraping sound came from behind the 
  door. 
  Silently, the hairy chemist turned the 
  knob, opened the door a crack and peered 
  in. He grunted. The room was vacant. 
  But about halfway across the room 
  was a huge mirror. It was canted so that 
  anyone looking through the window would 
  think he was seeing a man sitting in the 
  room. Actually, the man was in a room 
  farther to the right. 
  The man was still sitting at the table. 
  His back was toward them. Inch at a time, 
  Monk eased the door open, crept in. Ham 
  followed. 
  The man at the table whirled 
  suddenly. He had a submachine gun in his 
  hands. 
   
   
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  20 
   
  Barge Deeter screamed, and the gun dropped from his hand. The man in the other room was Doc Savage! 
   
  A yell came from Barge Deeter. 
  “Wait, Slingshot!” he half screamed. “We got 
  to get the other guy in yet!” 
  A howl came from Monk. The 
  meaning of Deeter’s words was quite plain. 
  Barge Deeter had led them into a trap! 
  Barge Deeter had just noticed Doc 
  Savage’s absence. A queer expression was 
  on his face. He held a gun in his hand. 
  Then Barge screamed again, and the 
  gun dropped from his hand. The man in the 
  other room had moved forward now; his 
  features could be seen clearly. 
  It was Doc Savage! 
  In the room with the bronze man was 
  a bound figure. It was that of “Slingshot,” the 
  gunman Barge had expected to find waiting. 
  Doc had suspected a trap, had slipped on 
  ahead to investigate. 
  “You gave yourself away several 
  times, Deeter,” the bronze man said quietly. 
  “The attack on you was too obviously a fake 
  to gain our confidence. And you said you 
  heard the hospital address at the airport. You 
  had left before the hospital was mentioned.” 
  Barge Deeter gulped. 
  “I permitted you to lead us here in 
  the hope we would find some answer to the 
  problem that confronts us. Now talk.” 
  Doc’s hypnotic eyes stared hard at 
  the man. Barge Deeter bobbed his head, 
  swallowed hard. He knew he would be forced 
  to talk if he continued to look into Doc’s eyes. 
  A strangled yell came from him. He 
  jumped back, pressed a button at the side of 
  the door. 
  The floor went out from under Doc 
  and his aids. And as the floor dropped open, 
  a strange sight came into view. 
  There was a cement room below, 
  like a tank. It was brilliantly lighted. And 
  around the walls, peering through peepholes 
  that could be closed, were a dozen thugs. All 
  had guns ready. 
  Barge Deeter had laid his trap well. 
  Br-r-r-r-r-r-r! 
  The submachine gun in Doc’s hands 
  spoke even as he was falling. It blasted out 
  the lights, threw the tank room in darkness. 
  Ham and Monk landed with mercy 
  pistols in their hands. 
  The floor closed to above them, 
  while the cellar rang with the blast of many 
  guns. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  21 
  But Doc was not there. He had 
  sprung upward, even as he had landed, had 
  caught hold of one edge of the floor, drawn 
  himself up. The next moment and he had 
  reached Barge Deeter. His powerful arms 
  shot out. 
  Deeter was big, and he knew how to 
  fight. But he had no chance. He went limp, 
  almost at once. Swiftly, Doc bound him, 
  dragged him into another room, rolled him 
  into a closet. 
  Then he dived back to the scene of 
  battle. Monk and Ham had to be saved. 
   
   
  MONK and Ham were having a busy 
  time of it. They knew they were in a tough 
  spot. Their bulletproof underwear had saved 
  them from being shot, but they faced another 
  peril now. 
  Water was creeping up in the tank 
  room. 
  The death trap was a clever one. 
  The hidden gunmen had hoped to mow down 
  their victims, while well concealed. But even 
  if that had failed, they had a second trick—
  and that was the water. 
  By closing the slots through which 
  they had fired, they made the room 
  waterproof. Any one caught in it would 
  drown. 
  Laughter was coming from the 
  concealed killers. That laughter stopped 
  suddenly. 
  A bronze thunderbolt hit them from 
  behind. Doc had found the passageway that 
  led to where they were. 
  Howls of pain came from the 
  darkness. Gunmen dropped, woodenlike, as 
  iron fists crashed into their jaws, and steel 
  fingers gripped their necks. They did not dare 
  to fire, for fear of hitting each other. 
  And they could not locate their 
  opponents. Doc moved like a silent wraith, 
  and a relentless one. Man after man went 
  down. 
  The few remaining on their feet tried 
  to run. Some got away. Others ran into Doc. 
  Silence came suddenly. The bronze 
  man flicked on a small torchlight, shut off the 
  Lake Michigan water that was pouring into 
  the tank room. 
  And just in time. Monk and Ham 
  were floating on the surface of the water, 
  near the floor. 
  Monk’s face wore a look of childlike 
  confidence as Doc opened the floor so they 
  could escape. “I knew you’d get us out,” he 
  said. 
  “The 
  darned 
  monkey 
  actually 
  seemed to enjoy it!” snorted Ham. 
  Doc said nothing. He led the way to 
  the closet where he had placed Barge 
  Deeter. 
  The bronze man threw open the 
  door. A weird, tuneless trilling sound came. 
  Barge Deeter wasn’t there! But some 
  one else was. 
  Bound and gagged, just as Doc had 
  left Deeter, was a girl. She was petite and 
  beautiful. It was the girl Monk had noticed as 
  they left the hotel. 
   
   
  Chapter VII 
  CHEMISTRY PLAYS GUIDE 
   
  THE girl’s eyes were closed. Doc 
  took the gag from her mouth, while Monk 
  rumbled forward and rubbed her wrists. The 
  hairy chemist grunted when he noticed how 
  easily the ropes came loose from around her 
  hands. 
  A frightened look came to the girl’s 
  face as her eyes opened. “What are you 
  doin’ here?” Monk piped angrily. 
  The girl gulped. “I—I’m a reporter,” 
  she said. 
  “Yeah?” Monk was frankly skeptical. 
  “How did you come to be here?” Doc 
  asked, not unkindly. 
  The girl swallowed hard. 
  “My—my editor assigned me to work 
  on Chicago angles of the Alaskan monster 
  case,” she said. “There seemed a definite 
  connection to us between the monster and 
  the killing of John Alden.” 
  “Humph!” Monk snorted. 
  The girl ignored him. She focused 
  her attention on Doc and Ham. “I heard that 
  Barge Deeter came on the same plane with 
  Alden,” she said with dignity. “I knew of him; 
  he’s supposed to have been connected with 
  gangs here, so I went to look for him.” 
  “Playing around with gangsters,” 
  Monk complained. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  22 
  “I followed a tip, and found Deeter 
  just as he came out of the hotel with you 
  three,” the girl went on. “I recognized Mr. 
  Savage, and thought I might get a better 
  story if I trailed along.” 
  “What is your name?” Doc asked 
  quietly. 
  “Barbara Hughes. I work for the 
  Blade.” 
  “But that still doesn’t explain how you 
  happen to be tied up here,” Monk put in. He 
  emphasized the word “tied.” 
  A flush crept over the girl’s features. 
  “I—I came in while you were all fighting,” 
  Barbara Hughes continued. “I—I found Barge 
  Deeter tied up in the closet. I still didn’t know 
  he might be connected with any of what was 
  going on. I thought he had been taken 
  prisoner by some of those you were fighting.” 
  Doc said nothing. 
  “I took the gag from his mouth, and 
  he promised to tell me the whole story if I 
  would release him. I—I did.” 
  “You sure did,” Monk complained. 
  “He 
  hit 
  me. 
  He 
  knocked 
  me 
  unconscious,” the girl said with some spirit. 
  Monk started to reply. He didn’t. 
  There was a sudden diversion. 
   
   
  HABEAS CORPUS also had trailed 
  along behind Doc and his aids. He had 
  slipped into the house when the girl entered. 
  Now he raced to the front door, squealed 
  loudly. 
  Monk 
  looked 
  up 
  curiously. 
  Sometimes, Monk thought Habeas could 
  almost talk. It was plain to him now what the 
  pig wanted. He went over, opened the door. 
  Chemistry bounded in. The ape 
  appeared badly battered, his fur was torn, but 
  he seemed well pleased with himself. 
  “Just the ape!” Monk snorted. 
  “‘Just the ape’ nothing!” Ham yelled. 
  “Remember where we saw that ape last? He 
  was trailing John Alden’s body. If he shows 
  up here, it must mean that body is near.” 
  Chemistry clawed at Ham’s coat. He 
  was making a pleading, whining sound. 
  “Come on!” Ham shouted happily. “I’ll 
  bet he’s trying to tell us where that body is.” 
  “We will follow him and see,” Doc 
  decided. 
  Barbara Hughes looked on amazed. 
  Apparently Doc and his aides forgot her. 
  They didn’t look her way. She hesitated, then 
  went along. 
  Others were interested in Doc, too. 
  His room at the hotel was the center of much 
  activity. 
  People were still investigating reports 
  of the rumpus in the lobby, when shooting 
  started on the fourteenth floor. A hotel 
  detective had seen a man slip into Doc’s 
  room. He’d tried to nab him. 
  Shots had come from a dozen 
  points. The hotel detective was killed almost 
  instantly. Then the radio police went into 
  action. The hotel floor then became a 
  battlefield. 
  When the shooting was over, three 
  gangsters had been killed, one policeman 
  was dead and several others were wounded. 
  The rest of the gang fled. 
  But Doc’s room had been thoroughly 
  searched. Papers and clothing were thrown 
  all over the floor. 
  Doc didn’t know this. With Ham and 
  Monk, and Barbara Hughes trailing in the 
  rear, he was following Chemistry. 
  The hairy ape took a direct course 
  across the rough ground, trotted along as if 
  he had been born in the section. He led them 
  west to a block on Drexel Boulevard that had 
  once been an exclusive part of Hyde Park. 
  This block had changed; it was filled mostly 
  with cheap boarding houses. 
  Only one old mansion remained of 
  past glory. It was set well back in a huge 
  expanse of lawn and shrubbery. Chemistry 
  turned in at the gate without hesitation. 
  Doc Savage slid past him, reached 
  the porch of the mansion silently. Monk, Ham 
  and the girl were close behind him. Monk 
  nudged Ham and pointed toward the ape. 
  The ape’s nostrils were quivering, he was 
  jumping up and down in excitement. 
  Barbara Hughes examined a brass 
  name plate on the door post. She uttered an 
  exclamation of surprise. 
  “Soung Percill!” she cried. “He’s a 
  queer one. An anthropologist of some sort. 
  He goes in for prehistoric animals. Lectures 
  about them.” 
  Monk and Ham exchanged sharp 
  glances. Doc reached for the bell. 
   
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  23 
   
  THE door opened. It opened even 
  before Doc’s fingers had touched the buzzer. 
  A slant-eyed Oriental stood before them. A 
  look of welcome faded from the Oriental’s 
  face; his expression changed to one of 
  surprise. Apparently he had been expecting a 
  guest. 
  But just as apparently he hadn’t been 
  expecting Doc Savage. 
  “We would like to see Mr. Percill,” 
  Doc said calmly.  
  The 
  Oriental’s 
  eyes 
  became 
  expressionless. He tucked his fingertips into 
  his coat sleeves and bowed. He chanted 
  something in singsong Chinese. It might 
  have been a greeting. Then he spoke in 
  English. 
  “Step light in, please.” He backed up, 
  bobbing up and down as if actuated by 
  strings. He backed the entire length of a 
  huge reception room. 
  “Gentlemans here, Master Soung,” 
  he hissed sibilantly. 
  A man appeared suddenly. He did 
  not seem to walk into the room, he appeared 
  just to materialize. He moved across the floor 
  with a smooth, gliding motion. Brilliant eyes 
  stared from behind a forehead so high it gave 
  the impression that he was growing bald. But 
  he was not. 
  The eyes were black and inscrutable. 
  The face had a queer, sallow paleness. 
  “You are from the police, no doubt,” 
  he said. It was more of a statement than a 
  question. His voice, also, was smooth and 
  soft, with just a hint of some unusual accent. 
  “No,” Doc said quietly. “We are not 
  the police. My name is Savage. Did you want 
  the police?” 
  Soung Percill leaned forward slightly. 
  His thin eyebrows arched. 
  “Ah. I should have recognized you, 
  Mr. Savage. Only the light is so dim.” 
  There did not seem to be quite the 
  right amount of surprise in his voice. 
  “Yes,” he continued, “I was expecting 
  the police, but I am more than glad you are 
  here. And I think I know what brought you.” 
  Doc’s 
  flake 
  gold 
  eyes 
  stirred 
  restlessly. “We came to inspect the body,” he 
  said, without expression. 
  Soung 
  Percill 
  bowed. 
  “As 
  I 
  expected,” he said. “My man, Sing Lee, 
  found it on the lawn less than half an hour 
  ago. I wanted the police to investigate.” 
  Doc said nothing. His flake gold eyes 
  were taking in every detail of the room they 
  had entered. 
  Books 
  and 
  manuscripts 
  were 
  everywhere. But it was on newspaper 
  clippings on the table that Doc’s gaze 
  seemed to center. There were dozens of 
  them. 
  All were about The Monster in 
  Alaska. 
  Habeas Corpus squealed suddenly. 
  He turned, tried to run from the room, almost 
  upsetting Ham. The dapper lawyer waved his 
  hands frantically to catch his balance. 
  “That blasted pig!” he barked. 
  Soung Percill turned, his face as 
  impassive as always. “Perhaps he does not 
  like the odor that seems to be associated 
  with the body,” he said. Then he noticed 
  Doc’s attention on the clippings. For the first 
  time his face showed animation. 
  “That is why I am glad you are here, 
  Mr. Savage,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you 
  about that case.” 
  “And your reaction?” Doc asked. 
  “I believe it quite possible,” Soung 
  Percill said with conviction. 
  He spoke swiftly, and at length. 
  Monk stirred uneasily. Soung Percill was an 
  educated man. That was apparent. But the 
  hair on the back of his neck was rising. There 
  seemed no danger, but still—  
  The hairy chemist thought of the 
  package suddenly, the package that had 
  been sent to Doc. He rammed a hand in his 
  pocket. The package was still there. 
  Soung Percill ended his discourse. 
  Doc replied gravely. 
  “Now I will take you to the body,” 
  Percill said. “If it is that of John Alden, as I 
  believe, and is connected with the Alaskan 
  monster, we may learn—” 
  “You’ll learn nothing!” a voice said 
  harshly. 
   
   
  BARBARA HUGHES gave a scream. 
  There was a crash of glass and a rush of 
  feet. Men appeared at the windows, and at 
  every door. 
  Doc leaped to one side. Monk and 
  Ham yanked out their machine-pistols. The 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  24 
  bullfiddle roar of the superfirers crashed out. 
  The attackers did not pause. 
  “Bulletproof vests again!” howled 
  Monk. 
  Doc suddenly moved. He left his 
  feet, dived straight through an open window. 
  Monk grinned. When odds were heavy, Doc 
  sometimes thought it best to get away, 
  knowing he could rescue his men later. 
  Barge Deeter knew that, too. Barge 
  was waiting outside the window. A dozen 
  men were waiting with him. Had Doc been 
  permitted to land on his feet, the end might 
  have been different. 
  But blackjacks swung while he was 
  still in the air, caught him over the back of the 
  head. Other men grabbed his flying feet. He 
  was brought down much as a football player 
  is tackled. Barge Deeter led the charge in 
  jumping on him. 
  Monk and Ham were finding the 
  odds too great, also. Men had seized them 
  from behind, knocked the machine pistols 
  from their hands. Chemistry fell before an 
  onslaught of four big hoodlums. Habeas 
  Corpus was kicked aside. 
  Despite the men on him, Doc 
  struggled up. His arms swept out. Attackers 
  reeled back. 
  Barge Deeter looked in the window. 
  He saw men with guns held at the back of 
  Monk’s and Ham’s heads. He saw Soung 
  Percill, crouched in a corner, hands high. 
  “Surrender, Doc Savage, or we’ll kill 
  your men!” Barge Deeter bellowed. 
  Doc stopped fighting. There was 
  nothing else to do. Even then, he might have 
  escaped himself. But bullets would get Monk 
  and Ham. Their heads were not protected. 
  Barge Deeter chuckled mirthlessly. 
  Monk and Ham were tied with heavy cords. 
  Barge didn’t think that would be enough for 
  Doc. Steel-riveted bands were jammed 
  around his body. They were forced into place 
  until they fitted like hoops on a barrel. 
  Soung Percill was being bound, also. 
  His face had again become impassive. 
  Only 
  Barbara 
  Hughes 
  was 
  not 
  molested. Barge Deeter threw one arm 
  around her shoulders. “I’m some guy, huh?” 
  he chuckled. 
  “What a story!” the girl breathed. “If I 
  could only print it!” 
  Barge’s chuckle grew deeper. “Wait 
  a while yet, baby,” he advised. “You ain’t 
  seen nothing.” 
  Barbara Hughes paled. “You mean 
  that—” 
  Barge looked at her, laughed loudly. 
  “Sure, baby. You know what I mean.” 
   
   
  Chapter VIII 
  DEATH CHAMBER 
   
  A FUNERAL was under way. Two of 
  them 
  evidently, 
  since 
  there 
  were 
  two 
  hearses. 
  Bystanders did not know who was to 
  be buried, but they did notice vaguely that 
  there were more mourners than usual. At 
  least a dozen cars trailed behind the 
  hearses. All the occupants were men. 
  But there was one girl along. She 
  was in the front hearse, but not in a casket. 
  She sat between two caskets. She was 
  blond, and beautiful, although now her 
  features appeared strained. 
  There were two caskets in the rear 
  hearse, 
  also. 
  Doc 
  and 
  Soung 
  Percill 
  occupied those in the front car. Monk and 
  Ham rode behind them. Jammed in with 
  them were Habeas and Chemistry. 
  The lids of the coffins had been 
  removed. But Monk and Ham could not talk. 
  They were too firmly gagged. Nor could they 
  move. 
  So they continued some experiments 
  in thought transference and telepathy they 
  had begun back in New York. The results 
  were pretty good. Ham almost choked on his 
  gag at the insults Monk was hurling at him. 
  Occasionally the hairy chemist strained at his 
  bonds, as if he wanted to get in at least one 
  more good punch. 
  Then Ham made his mind a blank. 
  Monk would have said that wasn’t too hard. It 
  served to infuriate the dapper lawyer more 
  than ever. 
  Ham realized they were in a tough 
  spot. Horseplay kept him from thinking of it. 
  Barge Deeter undoubtedly had trailed them 
  from 
  the 
  old 
  house, 
  had 
  gotten 
  reënforcements and attacked. The attack had 
  been too successful. 
  Ham was wondering what was in 
  store for them. Barge Deeter undoubtedly 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  25 
  had something unpleasant in mind. But he 
  was puzzled as to what connection Deeter 
  might have with the Alaskan monster. 
  Possibly he didn’t have any. But he certainly 
  had wanted the hair that came from The 
  Monster. He had taken that from Monk at 
  once. 
  Ham relaxed. There was no use 
  worrying about it. Doc would figure a way 
  out. 
   
   
  AND the bronze man was busy. The 
  funeral procession was rolling out toward the 
  city line in the direction of suburban Melrose 
  Park. 
  Doc stared in concentration at the 
  roof of the hearse. It was highly polished, it 
  served the bronze man as a mirror. He could 
  see that Soung Percill was moving stealthily. 
  Doc 
  was 
  wiggling, 
  too. 
  Not 
  perceptibly. He expanded and contracted 
  muscles slightly. It was sort of like an eel 
  wriggling. 
  His flesh rippled and slid the iron 
  hoops down a fraction of an inch at a time. 
  But Soung Percill did not have so 
  much of an obstacle to overcome. Apparently 
  he had a razor blade hidden in the lining of 
  his coat. He found it and slashed his bonds. 
  Cautiously, Percill removed the gag 
  that was in his mouth. He raised himself, inch 
  at a time, and leaned over toward Doc. 
  “I’ll help in a minute,” he whispered. 
  Percill did not speak loud. But his 
  voice had a thin, carrying quality. A guard 
  sitting at the foot of the coffin heard him. 
  The thug whirled, yanked out his 
  gun. 
  Soung Percill could not help Doc 
  then. He screamed, dived toward the back of 
  the hearse. The girl was in his way. He thrust 
  her out and back, jumped to the ground, just 
  as the thug fired. 
  Brakes went on. The thug piled out 
  the rear of the hearse, his gun still flaming. 
  Doc pulled himself up. The attempt 
  to escape was right in his line of vision. 
  There weren’t any houses in this part 
  of the city except a bit of wasteland where 
  gangsters liked to leave their victims. 
  Soung Percill streaked across a 
  weed-grown marsh, pulling the girl with him. 
  He stumbled once, got up again. 
  Then a submachine gun spoke. 
  Soung Percill reared erect, then dropped and 
  tried to crawl. Barge Deeter got down from 
  the driver’s seat of the first hearse, drew his 
  gun and fired once. 
  Soung Percill lay still. 
  A 
  gangster 
  grabbed 
  Barbara 
  Hughes, pulled her back toward the hearse. 
  “I thought yuh was in on this!” he snarled. 
  “Percill pulled me with him!” the girl 
  gasped.  
  Barge Deeter was smiling thinly. He 
  looked in the rear of the hearse. Then he 
  yelled in amazement. 
  “The 
  bronze 
  guy’s 
  gone!” 
  he 
  shouted. 
   
   
  MEN poured from the “mourners’” 
  cars, 
  dozens 
  of 
  men, 
  heavily 
  armed. 
  Spotlights went on in every car, made the 
  scene as light as day. 
  Fog appeared suddenly, a thick, 
  heavy fog. It seemed to come first from the 
  hearse in which Doc had been prisoner, but 
  no one noticed that. The fog spread too 
  rapidly. 
  In the space of seconds it had 
  completely covered the procession of cars. 
  The searchlights were useless. Men bumped 
  into each other, swearing. Guns barked, only 
  to stop as the gangsters realized they might 
  shoot each other. 
  The fog did not last long. It hung in 
  the air only for a few seconds, then it lifted. A 
  shout came up from one of the gunmen. 
  “Barge’s got him!” 
  A big man grunted. Under one arm 
  he held a huge, bronze figure. Steel bands 
  encased the victim until he could hardly 
  move. 
  Without a word, the big man carried 
  his victim back to the hearse, dumped the 
  other into a coffin. 
  “What a guy!” one of the gunmen 
  muttered. “All by yourself, too!” 
  “Yeah,” Deeter’s voice bragged. “He 
  ain’t so much.” 
  The gunman looked into the coffin. 
  The 
  figure 
  there 
  wore 
  Doc 
  Savage’s 
  clothes—but not Doc’s shoes. The gunman 
  did not notice the huge, oversize feet of the 
  man encased in the steel bands. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  26 
  The procession got under way again. 
  “Deeter” drove slowly. It was not difficult to 
  make the thug beside him suggest the proper 
  turns. 
  Doc had wanted to rescue Monk and 
  Ham. But he knew the artificial fog he had 
  created would not last long enough, so he 
  had done the next best thing: He had traded 
  places with Barge Deeter. 
  “Seems longer than usual,” he said 
  in Deeter’s voice. 
  “Yeah,” the thug said. “We’re driving 
  slow. There she is now, though. Won’t be 
  long.” 
  A narrow road led to what looked like 
  an ancient incinerator plant. It had been 
  once. 
  The thug was garrulous. Slight 
  suggestions from Doc brought out the story. 
  Once an incinerator for disposal of 
  stockyard refuse, gangsters had purchased it 
  to use as a crematory. It was just on the city 
  line. They even had a permit. It made an 
  ideal place for disposing of bodies. 
  Doc pulled the hearse up in front of 
  the crematory. He said nothing and stepped 
  from the hearse, walked with Deeter’s quick, 
  shuffling stride toward the second hearse. 
  There was an observation room on 
  the second floor of the crematory. A man was 
  peering through a small window. His eyes 
  flickered suddenly; he pressed a switch.  
  Light flooded the scene below. The 
  man started. He jumped to a microphone. 
  “Look at Deeter’s feet, you fools!” he 
  shouted. “You’ve been tricked. That’s Doc 
  Savage, not Deeter!” 
   
   
  THE 
  voice 
  thundered 
  through 
  loudspeakers. Gunmen were frozen with 
  surprise. Then they went into action. 
  But Doc Savage had not hesitated. 
  He had gone into action first. 
  A dozen men, heavily armed, were 
  about the hearse containing Monk and Ham. 
  Others would be there in a second. It was 
  impossible to rescue them for the moment. 
  The bronze man turned and ran. And 
  as he ran, fog flared out behind him. Doc 
  broke tiny capsules in one hand. A chemical 
  came from those capsules. Moisture in the 
  air struck the chemical, created the fog 
  effect. 
  The bronze man fitted queer goggles 
  over his eyes. With them on, he could see 
  plainly in the fog. 
  A huge car was at the side of the 
  building, a long open car of expensive make. 
  Doc raced to its side, looked in. The car was 
  locked. For a moment the bronze man was 
  beside it. Then he turned. 
  He raced directly into the crematory. 
  The artificial fog lifted just as he 
  moved through the door. The man in the 
  observatory above him saw him. Orders 
  roared through loud-speakers. Dozens of 
  men rushed into the building. 
  Doc dived down steps, reached what 
  looked like a huge boiler room. 
  It was only seconds later that his 
  pursuers arrived. They found Doc curiously 
  examining the control gadgets. 
  “Get him, he’s trying to put it out of 
  order!” Barge Deeter’s voice howled. As soon 
  as he was freed, the big man had run up. He 
  was still peeling make-up off his face, make-
  up Doc had hastily applied. 
  The gunmen leaped forward. Doc 
  waited calmly. He made no effort to escape. 
  Resistance would have been useless. 
  Barge Deeter’s eyes gleamed. “Got 
  you, Savage!” he gloated. 
  “A fairly complete place,” Doc said 
  quietly.  
  Deeter sneered. “It’s more than 
  complete—it’s 
  hell!” 
  he 
  snarled. 
  “The 
  temperature inside is four thousand degrees. 
  You just get on this belt and ride through 
  double doors. If we didn’t have those double 
  doors the heat in here’d be enough to fry us, 
  too. There’s an eight-foot air space between 
  them doors.” 
  Doc appeared only mildly interested. 
  More men were bringing in Ham and Monk. 
  Behind them, squealing and struggling, were 
  Habeas and Chemistry. 
  Monk’s face fell when he saw Doc. 
  He had hoped the bronze man had escaped. 
   
   
  BARGE DEETER gave a crisp order. 
  Men pushed Doc and his aids forward. They 
  found their eyes pressed against peepholes. 
  “Just on the chance you jammed this 
  thing, I’m going to use another body first,” 
  Deeter rasped. “Besides, I want you to 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  27 
  watch; I want you to know the hell that waits 
  you.” 
  Gangsters grinned. One brought the 
  body of John Alden. Swiftly the body was 
  fastened on the endless belt that ran inside 
  the furnace. 
  The roaring heat of the crematory 
  fires sounded dully. Machinery began to 
  rumble, the belt began to move. The outer 
  door opened automatically. John Alden’s 
  body slid from sight. 
  The peepholes gave onto a hollow 
  tube that ran into the chamber of fire. 
  Slowly, John Alden’s body came into 
  view. As the outside door closed, the second 
  door opened. Flames leaped out. John 
  Alden’s body dropped into those flames. It 
  disintegrated in the heat. 
  “At least,” Ham said, “it’s quick.” 
  Barge Deeter gave a quick signal. 
  Four men seized Doc, carried him toward the 
  moving belt. 
  Doc Savage said nothing. His face 
  was grim. Behind him there was a choked 
  cry. Barbara Hughes had descended to the 
  furnace room. 
  “It.—’it’s too awful,” she sobbed. “I—I 
  knew this place was here, but I—” 
  “Shut 
  up, 
  baby!” 
  Barge 
  Deeter 
  rapped. 
  Monk struggled at his bonds. He’d 
  hoped to the last that Doc had some trick, 
  some way of escaping. The destruction of 
  John Alden’s body had destroyed that hope. 
  “Doc! Doc!” he shrilled. “Don’t let 
  them do it! They can’t do it!” 
  Ham, also, was fighting futilely; 
  streams of perspiration bathed his face. 
  Doc looked at them. He said nothing. 
  Then he was tied to the asbestos 
  belt. Again the machinery began to move. 
  Slowly, Doc disappeared into the outer door. 
  Monk’s face was pressed close to a 
  peephole. Until the last, he would not give 
  up. The outer door closed. Then Monk 
  sobbed aloud. His huge shoulders sagged. 
  He twisted his face away. It was lined with 
  agony. 
   
   
  “I SAW him, Ham!” he choked. “Saw 
  his body drop into the fire. Nothing is left but 
  ashes.” 
  Ham tried to speak, but could not. He 
  had seen, also. His lips worked strangely. He 
  was afraid to trust himself to words as Monk 
  was tied to the asbestos belt. 
  “Good-by, you missing link,” he 
  managed at last. And turned his head away. 
  Barge Deeter kept his eye at a 
  peephole. He grunted with satisfaction as 
  Monk dropped into the fire. Ham was next. 
  He went without a word, face fearless. 
  Chemistry put up a good fight, but a useless 
  one. Habeas was tied into his arms. 
  Together, they made the ride. 
  “A complete job,” Barge muttered. 
  “Now we got nothin’ to worry about. Let’s go.” 
  Barbara Hughes was crying. But as 
  Barge Deeter looked at her, she made an 
  effort to stop her tears. She tried to smile. 
  “You’re going now?” she asked. 
  “Then take me with you.” 
  “I ain’t goin’ to do nothin’ else, baby,” 
  Barge Deeter said. 
  They left the room. Behind them, the 
  fire raged on unchecked. 
  Barge Deeter was jubilant as he got 
  into one of the touring cars. “I never thought 
  the big bronze bum would be such a push-
  over,” he chuckled. 
  The 
  gunman 
  with 
  him 
  grinned 
  slightly. “He was no pushover,” he said flatly. 
  “He just ran up against someone with more 
  brains than he had.” 
  Barge preened himself, reached 
  down and flicked a speck of dust off one of 
  his huge, oversize shoes. Others might kid 
  him about the size of those feet, but secretly 
  Barge was rather proud of them. 
  “I did do rather good,” he said 
  modestly. 
  His companion snorted. “You, hell! 
  You got licked once tonight. Lucky we came 
  along and helped or you might have been 
  outsmarted a second time.” 
  Barge Deeter’s expression didn’t 
  change. He brought his right fist over in a 
  looping right. The man’s jaw cracked, he slid 
  down in the seat of the car, unconscious. 
  Calmly, Deeter tossed him out. 
  Barbara Hughes’s features were still 
  strained and white. “I—you—” she started. 
  “Get in here with me, baby,” Barge 
  Deeter smirked. “No one can’t say I got no 
  brains.” 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  28 
  The girl slipped into the car. She 
  managed another smile. “You’re awfully 
  smart,” she said. “And you’re really going to 
  take me with you?” 
  Deeter started the car, sent it roaring 
  down the road. “Sure, baby, don’t you worry 
  about that.” His smirk became a wide grin. 
  The girl snuggled down into the seat. 
  “I—I do wish you hadn’t killed Soung Percill,” 
  she said. “I—I rather liked him.” 
  Barge Deeter scowled. “You ain’t 
  goin’ to like nobody but me,” he said firmly. 
  “But—but that was so useless,” the 
  girl argued. “I can understand why you 
  wanted to kill Doc Savage. He might have 
  interfered with your plans, but Percill—” 
  “Was just an Eurasian,” Deeter said. 
  “I didn’t like him.” 
  He wheeled the car into a small 
  airport. It was a private field, not equipped 
  with night lights, but he seemed to be 
  expected. Other men drove up. 
  A big transport plane was near a 
  hangar, motors idling. Men piled out of cars 
  and went toward the plane without a word. 
  Barge 
  Deeter 
  was 
  happy. 
  Doc 
  Savage was dead. The big boss was going to 
  be pleased. His reward would probably be a 
  big one. 
  He chuckled. The girl looked at him 
  inquiringly.  
  “I was just thinking, baby, how smart 
  the boss really is,” he explained. “If anybody 
  had any idea what he was doin’, how big a 
  thing he’s behind—” He chuckled again. 
  The girl frowned. “I really should call 
  my paper. If I don’t, my editor will be anxious, 
  perhaps have the police and Federal men 
  looking for me.” 
  Barge’s jaw dropped. “I’d forgotten 
  that,” he grumbled. “But I’ll do the calling.” 
  “Then just tell him I’m after a big 
  story, and—and that this is thirty from me.” 
  “Thirty?” Barge scowled suspiciously. 
  “My 
  own 
  number,” 
  Barbara 
  explained. “If you didn’t say that, he might not 
  believe you.” 
  Barge shuffled off, grinning. He was 
  still grinning when the big plane took off five 
  minutes later. 
  “You’re goin’ to see things, baby, 
  things that will make you think you’re 
  dreaming. But you won’t be. They’re real.” 
  The girl’s face whitened slightly. 
  “You—you mean The Monster?” 
  “I 
  mean 
  The 
  Monster,” 
  Barge 
  affirmed. “Too bad it couldn’t have killed 
  Savage, but he sure knows what hell felt 
  like.” 
   
   
  Chapter IX 
  BACK FROM HELL 
   
  BARGE DEETER had spoken truly 
  when he had called the crematory furnace a 
  hell. It was. Nothing human could withstand 
  the terrific heat generated in the blast pit. 
  Doc did not go into the pit. He had 
  had a few moments alone in the furnace 
  room before the gangsters arrived. In those 
  moments he had made his plans, had acted. 
  He lay quietly as the outer door 
  opened and he went through into the eight-
  foot tunnel between that and the door to the 
  inferno. The tunnel was narrow, and the 
  temperature seared the lungs. But it was 
  bearable. 
  Doc’s shoes seemed to go on toward 
  the second door. That door opened. A form 
  slid slowly along, dropped into the pit. The 
  door to the blast room closed. 
  But Doc was free, inside the eight-
  foot tunnel between the two doors. 
  Freeing himself from the ropes had 
  been easy. Razorlike false finger nails had 
  capped his own when he had permitted 
  himself to be seized in the furnace room. 
  Those razors had severed the ropes around 
  his 
  wrists. 
  He 
  had 
  merely 
  used 
  his 
  exceptionally limber and facile feet to slip out 
  of his shoes. 
  The angle from the peephole was 
  such that Barge Deeter could not see the top 
  of Doc’s body when the feet came into view. 
  Doc slipped from his clothes, drew himself 
  back, letting the clothes follow the shoes on 
  toward the fire. 
  Waste rags he had stored inside the 
  furnace door padded those clothes, made it 
  appear they covered a body. Just as the 
  second door opened, he made a small cloud 
  of smoke. 
  That smoke dimmed the vision of the 
  watchers only a little, but it was enough. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  29 
  Even Monk, well as he knew Doc 
  and his tricks, had been willing to swear the 
  bronze man had gone into the fiery pit. 
  Doc timed his actions to the instant. 
  He knew Barge Deeter would look away, 
  would seize another of his men. He dived 
  down the narrow tunnelway, directly toward 
  the second door. 
  The tunnelway was of tin. The razor-
  sharp false finger nails slashed down through 
  one side of it like a can opener. Almost 
  instantly he cut away a small section, rolled 
  through. He was still between the two walls 
  of the furnace, but he was no longer in sight 
  of those at the peepholes. 
  Monk’s body came along on the 
  asbestos belt. The second door opened to 
  receive him. Again there was a faint cloud of 
  smoke. Doc’s hands reached out, cut the 
  ropes about Monk’s feet, guided them 
  through the opening he had made in the 
  tunnel. 
  But through the peephole it appeared 
  that Monk went directly into the open door, 
  directly into the open fire there. That was an 
  optical illusion. 
  The trick Doc used was an old one. 
  He had arranged two mirrors in such manner 
  as to make it appear Monk went one way, 
  when, in reality, he went another. The mirrors 
  had come from the compact kit he carried 
  around his waist. 
  “My gosh!” Monk breathed. “I really 
  thought I was a goner.” Rivers of perspiration 
  poured from his body. 
  Doc had no time to answer. Ham’s 
  form was coming along the asbestos belt. 
  Ham opened his eyes cautiously, 
  saw Monk and Doc. He sighed. “Dying was 
  easy,” he said faintly. 
  Habeas Corpus and Chemistry came 
  through the slot in the side of the tunnel. Fur 
  was singed on the ape, and Habeas was 
  close to being the roast pig Ham had often 
  threatened to make him. 
  But they were alive. Doc again had 
  rescued his friends. 
  The crematory had been built from 
  the old incinerator. Mortar between the bricks 
  was loose and chalky. Doc handed his aides 
  narrow pieces of steel from his kit. They went 
  to work on the mortar. 
   
   
  IN Alaska, The Monster had claimed 
  another victim. Barge Deeter and a plane 
  loaded with gunmen were headed North. 
  More hell was soon to break in Arcadia 
  Valley. 
  Doc and his men did not know why 
  Barge Deeter was so interested in The 
  Monster. They did not know why he had 
  gone to such desperate lengths to regain the 
  hair John Alden had mailed, and to destroy 
  John Alden’s body. 
  And they did not know why The 
  Monster was wreaking such terrible havoc. 
  But of one thing they were sure: And 
  that was that the horrible menace that hung 
  over Arcadia Valley was still there, that it was 
  up to them to solve the mystery, to try and 
  save the lives of the colonists. 
  And now they had one thing on their 
  side. Barge Deeter believed them dead. The 
  big-footed killer did not know they were still 
  on the trail. 
   
   
  DAWN was just breaking when Doc 
  and his aides finally made their way through 
  the side of the furnace. 
  Chemistry romped around for a 
  moment, put his arms lovingly about Monk. 
  The hairy chemist roared, wrestled free. 
  “If you don’t keep that ape off me,” 
  he howled, “I—I’ll tear him limb from limb!” 
  Habeas Corpus shied away, rubbed 
  against Ham. The dapper lawyer exploded. 
  “And I’ll put this pig back in the furnace and 
  really enjoy roast pork,” he shouted. 
  Habeas and Chemistry darted for the 
  open air. They wandered down the drive to 
  the highway. 
  Monk and Ham were busy rubbing oil 
  on their scorched skin as Doc searched the 
  crematory. The observation room was empty. 
  Nothing had been left behind except some 
  old clothes. Doc donned those. He needed 
  them. 
  Then he turned to a telephone. He 
  made two calls. The first was to the Chicago 
  police. 
  “I’ll say I do know something about 
  some strange radio static!” roared the 
  sergeant at the other end of the line. “We got 
  a blast some time ago that almost put our 
  radio cars out of business. It was right on our 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  30 
  wave length. Why? Do you know something 
  about it?” 
  “I may be able to aid you later,” Doc 
  said smoothly. “Did you discover the cause?” 
  “I think we did!” the sergeant barked. 
  “We put our directional finders at work, and 
  found the static came from a car that drove to 
  a private airport. The men in the car took off 
  in a plane, heading north.” 
  “Thank 
  you,” 
  said 
  Doc. 
  Whirls 
  showed in his eyes. He had attached a static-
  making cylinder to the ignition wires of the 
  car that had been outside the crematory. The 
  results had been as he had expected. 
  He knew now that Barge Deeter was 
  heading toward Alaska. 
  Then he made a second call. He had 
  some difficulty before he reached the city 
  editor of the Blade. The editor had gone 
  home and was sleeping. Doc asked him just 
  one question. 
  A strange, trilling sound came as he 
  received his answer. 
  Monk and Ham grumbled. Walking 
  was not their idea of fun. But no cars had 
  been left behind. They had started to hike 
  back toward the city. 
  A short distance ahead of them, 
  however, they came across a truck in front of 
  a road stand. Doc handed the stand owner a 
  ten dollar bill and climbed in behind the 
  wheel of the truck and drove toward the city. 
   
   
  DOC and his aides left the truck at a 
  busy corner in the city. Then they took a cab, 
  and Doc gave an address. Ham looked 
  puzzled. He looked more puzzled a few 
  minutes later. The cab turned on the street 
  where Soung Percill had lived. 
  Percill’s mansion was gone. Plenty of 
  police and firemen were about. The house 
  had been burned to the ground. 
  Doc stopped and asked questions. 
  “Arson,” grunted one of the firemen. 
  “We found a body in there, also. The body 
  had a bullet wound in it. Looks like somebody 
  killed Percill, then set the house on fire to 
  hide the crime, but it didn’t work. 
  Ham whistled. Doc’s flake gold eyes 
  narrowed. 
  “Our friends are thorough, at any 
  rate,” Monk said. 
  What had happened seemed clear. 
  The gangsters had brought Percill’s body 
  back, then burned the house. They hadn’t 
  expected to hide the fact that Percill had 
  been murdered. But they preferred that to 
  having anyone find his body near the 
  crematory. 
  An investigation might have been 
  made then that would have revealed the fact 
  that Doc and his men had been killed. As it 
  was, everyone was accustomed to the 
  bronze man disappearing for long periods of 
  time. If he and his men vanished alone, 
  nothing would be thought of it. 
  “At least they don’t know we’re still 
  alive,” Ham said with satisfaction. 
   
   
  HAM was in error there. As the cab 
  turned on toward their hotel, a man came 
  from one of the rooming houses nearby. He 
  looked as if he had been seeing ghosts. He 
  got into a small roadster and trailed the cab. 
  Doc and his men left the cab at their 
  hotel. The man in the roadster saw them 
  plainly. He licked dry lips, then stepped down 
  hard on the accelerator. He went to a night 
  club. 
  The night club appeared deserted. It 
  was long after hours. But the man knocked 
  on a rear door, gave a signal. The door 
  opened. 
  Without wasting time, the man ran 
  down a flight of steps. He entered a room 
  that the patrons of the night club had never 
  seen. It was a radio room. An operator was 
  lounging back in a chair, reading a copy of 
  The Shadow. 
  “Quick! Get Barge Deeter! Doc 
  Savage is still alive!” gasped the messenger. 
  The operator galvanized into action. 
  He grabbed a set of headphones, reached 
  for a key. 
  Miles away, an operator in a plane 
  received the news. His face paled as he 
  interpreted the message. 
  Frantically he scrambled back, gave 
  Barge Deeter the paper covered with 
  sprawled words. Deeter’s big feet were 
  propped out comfortably in front of him. 
  Barbara Hughes sat close by. 
  The big feet came down with a bang. 
  “It—it ain’t possible!” Deeter gasped. 
  “Nobody could ‘a’ got out of that furnace!” 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  31 
  “He 
  did,” 
  the 
  operator 
  said 
  laconically. 
  Deeter pulled himself up with sudden 
  decision. He issued crisp orders. The 
  operator grinned. 
  The man who had trailed Doc, 
  grinned also as the orders came over. He 
  went to a telephone, relayed the message to 
  someone at the other end of the wire. 
  Then he went to the street. An extra 
  was being hawked by the newsboys. It was 
  all about another killing by The Monster in 
  Arcadia. 
  “You’ll have another extra to sell 
  before long, that really will sell papers,” the 
  man said under his breath. 
   
   
  Chapter X 
  ARCADIA VALLEY 
   
  DOC and his men did not know of 
  the mysterious message. Monk and Ham 
  already seemed to have forgotten their close 
  escape from death. They were ribbing each 
  other as usual when they arrived at the 
  airport where Doc had left his plane. 
  “I’d just as soon that bunch of 
  monkeys thought we were goners, anyhow,” 
  Monk rumbled. “They won’t be expecting us 
  then.” 
  “Monkeys ought to know that apes 
  are hard to kill,” Ham said sarcastically. 
  “Doc, tell this shyster to lay off me,” 
  Monk wailed. “All he does is just—” 
  “I don’t fall for the wrong girl, 
  anyhow,” Ham put in quickly. 
  The 
  hairy 
  chemist’s 
  face 
  fell. 
  “Doggonit,” he moaned. “I’d almost forgotten 
  her. She sure led us into something. But I 
  didn’t fall for the dizzy blonde. For once I 
  guessed right. I knew she was a crook.” 
  Doc began watching the skies. He 
  gave a small sound of satisfaction. A speedy 
  scout plane suddenly dived down from high 
  overhead, motor screaming, and came to a 
  perfect landing. 
  A thin man with pallid, unhealthy-
  appearing complexion, stepped from the 
  plane. He was not very tall, and seemed a 
  physical weakling. That appearances were 
  deceitful, those who had come in contact with 
  Major Thomas J. Roberts knew to their 
  sorrow. 
   
     “Long Tom”—Thomas J. Roberts—
  known as the “wizard of the juice”—is 
  the electrical expert of Doc Savage’s 
  band of intrepid fighters. Small in 
  stature, his brain holds an enormous 
  amount of learning. It is he who 
  furnishes the electrical equipment and 
  radio devices that have done much to 
  further the success of Doc Savage’s 
  triumphs over his enemies—men who 
  wish to further their own ends at the 
  expense and suffering of mankind. 
   
  Called “Long Tom” by his friends, he 
  was a wizard with electricity. He was another 
  of the bronze man’s aides. Long Tom yanked 
  parcels from the cockpit of the scout plane. 
  “Think I got everything you asked for, Doc, 
  even though time was short,” he said. 
  The bronze man made a swift 
  inspection. “All here,” he said briefly. 
  Monk and Ham looked at each other 
  in faint surprise. Some of the objects Long 
  Tom had brought were familiar, but others 
  they had never seen. And, too, they 
  wondered how Doc had gotten in touch with 
  Long Tom. But if he didn’t say, they weren’t 
  going to ask. 
  A reporter and cameraman came 
  running up as Doc and his men loaded the 
  stuff Long Tom had brought into the big 
  transport plane. Unobtrusively, the bronze 
  man vanished. Monk and Ham also slipped 
  inside the ship. 
  “Where’s Doc Savage? Is he going 
  to Arcadia?” the reporter demanded. 
  Long Tom looked dumb. “Who? 
  Where?” he asked stupidly. 
  Motors of the big transport plane 
  roared into life. The reporter sputtered 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  32 
  futilely. No one noticed the touring car that 
  raced suddenly across the field. 
  “I got to be goin’ now,” Long Tom 
  said. He jumped into the plane. The 
  photographer lifted his camera for a swift 
  shot. 
  Br-r-r-r-r-r! 
   
   
  THE cameraman gave a faint gasp. 
  His camera dropped from his hand as he 
  crumpled to the earth. The reporter had 
  heard submachine guns talk before. He did 
  not hesitate. He dived to his face. 
  The gun had not been aimed at the 
  reporter or cameraman. It had been aimed at 
  the plane. It had been the cameraman’s 
  misfortune to get in the way. Lead hammered 
  up toward the motors of the ship. Those 
  motors, four of them, howled loudly. The 
  plane spun, headed directly toward the 
  oncoming touring car. 
  The men in the car ducked, the 
  driver swerved, but the Tommy gun roared 
  again, bullets glancing harmlessly off the 
  metal of the wings. 
  There was a faint thud. A small 
  object, like a tin can, spun from the front of 
  the plane, landed directly in the touring car. A 
  cloud of gas arose as the can landed. The 
  driver let go the wheel, clawed frantically at 
  his nose and eyes. Then the car overturned, 
  spilling gangsters on the field. Some did not 
  arise again. 
  There was a police car near the field. 
  Cops got out of it, guns in their hands, and 
  advanced toward the crooks. 
  The big transport plane lifted easily, 
  circled once more, then headed north. 
  “Evidently our foes know that we 
  were not cremated,” Doc said quietly. 
  “Some of them sure know it now, at, 
  any rate,” Ham said dryly. He was watching 
  the scene on the landing field. The gunmen, 
  still blinded by the gas bomb hurled at them 
  by Doc, were trying to rise and fight. 
  Police guns barked briefly. The 
  gangsters went down. 
  All Doc’s men were experienced 
  pilots. They alternated at the controls, 
  pushing the giant plane along rapidly. 
  Already they feared they might have been 
  delayed too much, that more of the Arcadia 
  colonists might have fallen victim to The 
  Monster. 
  “What can it all be about? Could 
  there really be such a beast?” Long Tom 
  asked wonderingly. 
  “If we only had that hair, maybe we 
  could 
  tell 
  something 
  about 
  it,” 
  Monk 
  grumbled. 
  “You were going to guard it,” Ham 
  reminded maliciously. “If you could only keep 
  things—” 
  He broke off, appeared startled. 
  Chemistry, looking quite proud of himself, 
  had waddled forward, placed one hand in 
  Monk’s coat pocket. He brought out the 
  oblong package—the package that had 
  contained the giant hair. 
  “W-what! H-how?” gulped Monk. 
  Ham laughed delightedly. “Chemistry 
  did it!” he shouted. “He got it!” 
  Monk turned blankly to Long Tom. 
  “T-that wasn’t there. Barge Deeter took it. 
  That ape’s playing tricks!” 
  “No,” Ham said modestly. “I merely 
  taught him to pick pockets. I know what 
  happened. He liked that thing; he swiped it 
  back from Barge, probably hid it in the 
  furnace room. When we got out of that oven, 
  he put it back in your pocket.” 
  Long Tom opened the package, 
  examined the hair with deep interest. “Truly, 
  it must have come from a beast of gigantic 
  stature,” the electrical wizard mused. 
  Monk lumbered forward, relieved 
  Doc at the controls. 
  The bronze man gave his low, trilling 
  sound when he saw the hair. He issued 
  instructions crisply. Ham and Long Tom 
  opened several of the packages Long Tom 
  had brought from Doc’s offices in New York. 
  In the rear of the plane was a small 
  laboratory. It was compact, and as near 
  complete as space permitted. Doc vanished 
  into this, taking the hair with him. 
  Ham nodded with satisfaction. “Now 
  we’ll have something to work on,” he 
  predicted. 
  A sharp cry came from Monk. The 
  plane lurched as it made a sharp turn. The 
  motors roared with suddenly increased 
  power. 
  Long Tom dived to a window, looked 
  out. One look was sufficient. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  33 
  Four small, speedy planes were 
  diving toward them. At the same moment the 
  four motors of Doc’s big transport ship 
  stopped as completely as if the switches had 
  been turned off! 
   
   
  MONK’S 
  cry 
  attracted 
  Doc’s 
  attention. The bronze man appeared from the 
  laboratory, took in the situation at a glance. 
  With smooth speed he darted to the front of 
  the plane, dropped into the co-pilot’s seat. 
  “They’ve got an electric ray, one that 
  has paralyzed the magnetos in our motors,” 
  Long Tom muttered. 
  Doc 
  nodded, 
  his 
  bronze 
  face 
  impassive. A worried look was on Monk’s 
  homely features. Even Ham had lost some of 
  his usual aplomb. 
  Their plight was desperate. Monk 
  had pushed the controls forward, had thrown 
  the plane into a slight glide. Behind them, the 
  pursuing 
  ships 
  were 
  overhauling 
  them 
  rapidly. 
  For a moment the combat planes 
  were holding their fire. Hard-faced pilots were 
  sneering, fingers ready on the triggers of 
  their machine guns, ready to blast their 
  helpless prey. 
  Doc took the controls. The hairy 
  chemist surrendered them willingly. He was 
  an expert pilot, but here was a job he knew 
  only Doc could handle. 
  Even if they could dodge their 
  pursuers, a landing with dead stick would be 
  impossible. Trees and rocky crags were 
  beneath them. The plane would be shattered 
  into a thousand pieces. 
  “Tighten your belts! Hold on!” Doc’s 
  voice was not raised, but his aides obeyed 
  instantly. The worried look vanished from 
  Monk’s face, to be replaced by a childlike air 
  of confidence. 
  Behind them, the pilot in the leading 
  pursuit ship raised his arm. Four fingers 
  tightened on the triggers of four machine 
  guns. A rain of lead poured toward the 
  helpless transport plane. 
  In the same instant, Doc Savage 
  leaned forward, pressed two small buttons. 
  And 
  then 
  an 
  amazing 
  thing 
  happened. 
  There was a crash, as if from a 
  terrific explosion. The transport plane dived 
  sharply, then literally shot almost straight up 
  into the air. It traveled at an incredible speed. 
  Bullets aimed at it from behind 
  passed harmlessly through the spot the 
  plane had occupied a moment before. 
  Blam! 
  A second explosion came. Doc’s 
  plane smashed up through a thick layer of 
  clouds, came out in the sunlight thousands of 
  feet above the pursuit ships. 
  Monk 
  gasped. 
  He 
  had 
  been 
  slammed back hard against the back of his 
  seat. The wind had been knocked from him. 
  “What the—” he muttered. 
  “Merely two powerful rockets, built in 
  the tail of the plane,” Doc explained quietly. 
  The hairy chemist gulped, 
  and 
  nodded. Doc, he knew, had experimented 
  with rocket ships. 
  The rockets had shot the plane far 
  out of range of its pursuers, had saved Doc 
  and his men from what had seemed certain 
  doom. 
  There was a sudden roar. The four 
  big motors went back into action, brought the 
  big ship back under control. 
  “We are now out of range of the 
  electrical 
  equipment 
  which 
  temporarily 
  disabled our motors,” Doc said simply. 
  “This is screwier and screwier,” Monk 
  complained. “If that Monster is on the level, 
  why are so many efforts being made to keep 
  us from getting to Arcadia?” 
   
   
  BEHIND, and far below them, were 
  four men who might have answered Monk’s 
  question had they wished. But they were far 
  too startled to think of anything except the 
  strange sight they had just witnessed. 
  The pilot in the lead ship wagged the 
  wings of his plane, turned north. He was 
  following the course that Doc’s ship had 
  taken, but he had no expectation of 
  overtaking it. 
  He shrugged, reached out and 
  touched a small radio key, tapped out a 
  message. He sent in code, and in a strange 
  language. 
  Miles to the north, a man with huge, 
  oversize feet read that message, handed it to 
  his companion. 
  “T-they failed!” he said hoarsely. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  34 
  The 
  other’s 
  expression 
  became 
  malevolent, his eyes sparkled dangerously. “I 
  suppose I should have expected it,” he said. 
  His voice was queer, almost lisping. 
  “What are we going to do, boss?” 
  Barge Deeter frankly showed the worry he 
  felt. 
  A thin, mirthless grin crossed the 
  other’s face. “Two things. First, Barge, send 
  the men we selected to the colony. They 
  know what to do there. Send that other 
  messenger to the Indians. They will lay the 
  groundwork. And then—” 
  “What then, boss?” 
  “The Monster has been searching for 
  a bronze-haired man, Barge,” said the 
  others. 
  “It can’t fail!” Barge exulted. “You’re 
  right. The Monster has been searching for 
  the heart of a bronze-haired man—and that 
  fits Doc Savage. Not even that bronze fiend 
  can cope with The Monster.” 
   
   
  BARGE DEETER might not have felt 
  quite so sure, had he been watching the 
  bronze man just then. 
  Doc Savage was studying a test 
  tube, a peculiar expression in his eyes. In 
  that test tube had been placed fine residue 
  from the hair of The Monster. Other 
  chemicals had been added with it. 
  The 
  bronze 
  man 
  nodded, 
  and 
  worked swiftly. He made a compound of a 
  strange powder. This compound he coated 
  on several small objects, approximately as 
  big around as pencils. But they were not 
  solid, as are pencils; they were very porous. 
  The plane nosed down. Doc left the 
  laboratory. 
  “We’re at Arcadia,” Ham announced. 
  The bronze man nodded. 
  Below them was the fertile valley that 
  the modern pioneers called home. The day 
  was bright, the weather fine. 
  But for a homestead project, the 
  fields beneath them presented a strange 
  appearance. They should have been filled 
  with working men and teams. Children 
  should have been playing around the cabins. 
  Just the opposite was true. The fields 
  were deserted. No one was outside the 
  cabins. Only the fact that smoke rose from 
  chimneys showed that the valley was still 
  inhabited. 
  The Monster had laid the cold hand 
  of fear on the very heart of the colony. Few 
  moved about even in daytime. Not even 
  brave men could be persuaded to leave their 
  homes at night. 
  Monk’s face was beaming. There 
  should be fighting ahead. 
  “But I still don’t think there is such a 
  thing,” Monk told Long Tom. “It’s just some 
  trick. Now that we’re here, everything will be 
  all right. I’d like to meet that Monster myself.” 
  It was just as well that Monk could 
  not look into the future, that he did not know 
  just how soon his wish was to be granted—
  and what the result was to be. 
   
   
  Chapter XI 
  A COLONY OF FEAR 
   
  SOUND of the roaring plane brought 
  a few heads out of cabin doors. Then the 
  plane swept down, and its markings were 
  identified. The result was amazing. 
  People seemed to pour from all 
  sides. There were women with fear-lined 
  faces. Children clung to their hands, tried to 
  hide behind their skirts. Men, with stern 
  features and shaking hands, some carrying 
  guns, rushed forward. 
  As Doc eased the plane to a landing 
  on a broad meadow, their shouts came even 
  above the shattering burst of the engines. 
  “Doc Savage! Doc Savage! The 
  bronze man is here! We are safe! Safe!” 
  Doc rarely showed emotion. But he 
  showed it now. Compassion was in his flake 
  gold eyes. 
  A tall, bearded man, whose white 
  hair hung almost to his shoulders, grabbed 
  Doc by the hand, wrung it hard. He seemed 
  to find it difficult to speak. 
  “We are glad, sir, glad you are here,” 
  he said at last. “We know you can save us, 
  and can save what we are working for.” 
  “We are here to try,” Doc said 
  quietly. 
  Monk and Ham moved the plane to a 
  shelter of several large trees, where they 
  could anchor it firmly. Doc, accompanied by 
  the man with the white hair, made a short 
  inspection of the colony. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  35 
  “My name is Dwight, sir, Herb 
  Dwight,” the old man said. “We were happy 
  here until this—this Monster came. We want 
  to stay here, we love it here.” 
  Doc’s eyes missed nothing. Modern 
  cabins 
  had 
  been 
  erected. 
  The 
  farm 
  machinery was of the best kind, and the soil 
  was fertile. Where crops had been planted, 
  those crops were coming up rapidly. 
  Some of the colonists were from 
  cities. Others had come from farms where 
  the soil had worn out. The experienced ones 
  had helped those not so experienced. 
  It was easy to see what a happy spot 
  Arcadia Valley must have been before the 
  terror of The Monster wiped laughter from the 
  hearts of its inhabitants. 
  Dusk 
  was 
  falling, 
  clouds 
  were 
  appearing in the sky, as Dwight led Doc 
  toward his home for supper. 
   
   
  FROM a fringe of trees, half a mile 
  from the main colony, three men crept 
  forward. In appearance, they were colonists. 
  They also wore overalls and flannel shirts. 
  But they were not colonists. And their 
  errand was a grim one. 
  However, despite whatever their 
  errand was, fear was forgotten by the people 
  for a moment. 
  Habeas Corpus and Chemistry had 
  made an immediate hit! The pig and ape 
  were surrounded by curious children almost 
  as soon as they came from the plane, and 
  made friends at once. 
  One small boy even got on Habeas 
  Corpus’s back, while the pig squealed and 
  ran in mock fright. For the first time in days, 
  the children laughed naturally. Even their 
  parents looked amused. 
  Chemistry brought laughter when he 
  cornered an inquisitive youth, held him 
  solemnly with one arm, while with his other 
  fist he pretended to pluck lice from the boy’s 
  head. 
  “Looks like you’re making a hit, 
  Monk,” Ham said maliciously. 
  “Yeah, well, at last they’re not riding 
  me,” piped the hairy chemist. 
  The bronze man’s aides had a dozen 
  invitations for dinner, but they joined Doc at 
  Dwight’s cabin. Mrs. Dwight, small and 
  motherly, brought pleased grunts from Monk 
  as she heaped the table with fried chicken, 
  hot biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy. 
  “We all know, now that you boys are 
  here, we will have nothing more to worry 
  about,” Mrs. Dwight said with conviction. 
  “Doc’ll take care of it okay,” said 
  Monk, and filled his plate for the third time. 
  “If he doesn’t do it fast, you’ll eat 
  everybody out of house and home,” grinned 
  Ham. 
  Rain pattered faintly on the roof, then 
  ceased. 
  Mrs. 
  Dwight 
  shuddered. 
  Involuntarily, she turned pale; her voice sank 
  to a whisper. 
  “A storm. And The Monster always 
  comes when it storms.” 
  Herb 
  Dwight’s 
  eyes 
  flickered 
  uneasily toward the windows. His tall frame 
  seemed bent and aged, suddenly. 
  “Already some of the more timid 
  have left,” he said. “I do not blame them—
  much. We all will leave if this Monster is not 
  trapped and killed. Only the fact that we 
  knew you were coming kept as many of us 
  here as there are.” 
  Doc 
  nodded. 
  “This 
  Monster, 
  I 
  believe, is referred to in an Indian legend. It 
  seems strange, however, that its power 
  would be great enough to reach Chicago.” 
  “You mean—” 
  “John Alden was killed in Chicago,” 
  Doc reminded. “His body was not mutilated, 
  but otherwise the symptoms outwardly were 
  as if he had been killed by The Monster. The 
  same odor was about his body. He lost his 
  voice as others have said they did when they 
  saw the strange beast.” 
  Herb Dwight looked at Doc strangely. 
  “I gather, Mr. Savage, that you may doubt 
  there is such a monster, may believe our 
  people have merely imagined they saw 
  something.” 
  “No,” said Doc. “I do not doubt the 
  stories of the colonists. They have reported 
  just what they saw.” 
  “What Doc means, I think,” Long 
  Tom explained, “is that there may be a 
  human agency as well as an oversize, giant 
  beast to contend with.” 
  Mrs. Dwight shuddered. “To think 
  that humans might be connected with such a 
  foul thing, that they might aid it in catching 
  other men so it might feed on bodies!” 
  
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  36 
  Monk frowned. “Now that’s all over,” 
  he said reassuringly. “There’s goin’ to be no 
  more screamin’ from now on—” 
  He broke off, his face changing 
  expression with startling suddenness. Every 
  person at the table went rigid. 
  High 
  and shrill, came a long, 
  unearthly wail. 
   
   
  MONK and Ham moved fast. Long 
  Tom was far from slow. They barely had their 
  chairs pushed back before Doc was outside. 
  Herb Dwight sat as one frozen for a 
  long instant. The fast disappearance of his 
  guests snapped him out of it. Courage 
  returned to his lined face. 
  He, also, leaped from his chair, 
  raced for the door. He grabbed a long-
  barreled rifle as he ran. 
  The 
  wail 
  sounded 
  even 
  louder 
  outside. It did not stop, did not rise or fall. It 
  kept on, steady, high-pitched. 
  The sound came from the direction 
  of Doc’s big transport plane. 
  And then the loud, unearthly wail 
  stopped. It shut off in mid-beat, and the 
  silence that followed seemed queer and 
  sinister. 
  Herb Dwight was almost behind 
  Long Tom. The white-haired colonist heard a 
  sudden shout of surprise come from the 
  lanky electrical genius. 
  Long Tom put on more speed. He 
  moved away as if Herb Dwight had been 
  standing still. 
  In the same instant, two other 
  shapes flashed by. One was running low to 
  the ground, making queer grunting sounds. 
  The other was half erect, and made no sound 
  at all. Red eyes gleamed in a hairy face. 
  Habeas Corpus and Chemistry were 
  not going to be left behind. If there was to be 
  action, they wanted to be in on it, too. 
  The night was pitch dark. It had 
  stopped raining for the moment, but storm 
  clouds hid the stars. It was impossible to see 
  three feet ahead. 
  Monk and Ham moved forward 
  rapidly, Monk lumbering, Ham running with 
  the smooth grace of a fencer. 
  A low, trilling sound came to their 
  ears. Neither Monk nor Ham hesitated. They 
  dived face downward on the ground. 
  Blam! Blam! 
  Lead tore over their heads. Guns 
  flashed from the direction of the plane. 
  Only Doc’s warning had saved the 
  dapper lawyer and hairy chemist. 
   
   
  MONK and Ham separated without a 
  word. They moved forward in short bursts, 
  crawling rapidly, then dropping flat. The guns 
  continued to bark. 
  Doc Savage circled. He moved like a 
  wraith in the darkness. A small object was in 
  his hand. It was one of his tiny gas bombs, a 
  gas that brought quick unconsciousness, but 
  not death. 
  Slowly he eased forward. 
  Ham was saying bitter things to 
  himself. 
  The 
  ground 
  was 
  muddy, 
  his 
  immaculate attire was being ruined. 
  From the sound of the shots, there 
  could be only two men. Doc could take care 
  of them. 
  And Ham knew that it was no 
  monster they were stalking, nor had the 
  weird wail been from a human throat. The 
  wail had merely been a siren, which sounded 
  when any one approached the plane and 
  passed through a ray of invisible light. It was 
  one of the usual precautions they took to 
  safeguard the plane. 
  The sudden stopping of that siren 
  was something else. Ham thought he knew 
  what that meant, also, thought he knew what 
  they would find when they reached the plane. 
  The lawyer saw a lumbering figure, 
  shortly ahead of him, creeping forward 
  cautiously. A grim smile came to his lips. 
  Slowly he drew himself up, leaped 
  forward. 
   
   
  DOC, close to the plane, hurled the 
  small gas bomb. It hit a wing of the ship, 
  made a faint crash as glass broke. 
  A hoarse shout came. “Beat it! That 
  bronze guy has thrown a bomb!” 
  There were sounds of running feet. 
  Doc sprinted after them. He could overtake 
  them easily, could probably gain some 
  information from one of the two attackers. 
  Then he halted. A strangled shout 
  had come from near by. It was Ham’s voice. 
  It was a call for aid. Following it came a 
  
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  37 
  tremendous thrashing, and more gurgling 
  cries. 
  Doc did not hesitate. Ahead of him 
  were two men who might hold the key to the 
  secret he sought, but behind him one of his 
  men was in trouble. 
  Instantly he whirled, sped toward the 
  scene of the fight. Squealing sounds were 
  coming now. Monk’s bellow could be heard 
  as he also raced toward the scene. 
  Doc drew a small flashlight, flicked it 
  on. He stopped.  
  On the ground, rolling over and over, 
  was Ham. His eyes were almost popping 
  from his head, his hands were beating the air 
  futilely. 
  Astride him, one hairy arm crooked 
  about the dapper lawyer’s throat, was 
  Chemistry. The ape’s small red eyes were 
  blinking, his teeth were showing viciously. 
  Nipping at the ape’s heels was Habeas 
  Corpus. 
   
   
  MONK panted up, took in the scene 
  with one quick look. His mouth opened, he 
  almost strangled with laughter. 
  “Chemistry!” said Doc quietly. 
  The ape started, his grip relaxed. 
  Almost sheepishly he loosed his hold, 
  ambled over to Monk. 
  “I—I 
  saw 
  something 
  creeping 
  forward,” gasped Ham. “I jumped on it—and 
  it was that.” 
  “And what did you expect Chemistry 
  to do?” Monk howled. “Naturally he fought 
  back.” 
  “And meanwhile, the men at the 
  plane have made their escape,” Doc Savage 
  said quietly. 
  Monk sobered instantly. Doc never 
  criticized, but Ham knew it was his fault the 
  men had gotten away. Doc had returned to 
  aid him. 
  “I don’t think all of them did,” Long 
  Tom put in with quiet satisfaction. 
  Long Tom was right. One had not 
  escaped. His body lay beside the door to the 
  plane. One hand was burned. 
  “The siren sounded a warning,” Long 
  Tom explained to Herb Dwight. “But this man 
  came on. The plane was wired, not with 
  enough 
  juice 
  to 
  kill 
  under 
  ordinary 
  circumstances, but only to give a severe 
  shock. Tonight, the ground was wet. Which 
  would complete a circuit. I thought something 
  like this had happened when the siren 
  stopped. This man was killed as he tried to 
  enter the plane. That meant the circuit was 
  shorted.” 
  “But—but 
  who 
  is 
  he?” 
  Dwight 
  gasped. “I never saw him before.” 
  Long Tom shook his head. He had 
  never seen the man before either. He was 
  dressed like one of the colonists, but 
  evidently he wasn’t one of them. 
  Doc entered the plane. He returned 
  almost at once, his face expressionless as 
  usual, but his aides knew something was 
  wrong. 
  “Barge Deeter is a very persistent 
  man,” Doc said quietly. “The hair that came 
  from The Monster has been stolen. Nothing 
  else was taken.” 
   
   
  Chapter XII 
  AN INDIAN RAID 
   
  NOT all the colonists had been 
  alarmed by the sound of the siren. A mile up 
  the valley a girl and a boy were absorbed 
  only in each other. 
  For them, fear had lifted with the 
  arrival of Doc and his men. For the first time 
  in days, they felt free. 
  They walked along, almost unaware 
  of the rain that fell. A burden had been lifted 
  from them—the burden of fear. Arcadia had 
  become a paradise again. 
  “I’ve got a plot of land picked out,” 
  the boy explained eagerly. “We can get it all 
  right, and then we can get married next 
  week. Won’t that be fine?” 
  The girl’s hand tightened in his. 
  Thunder 
  roared, 
  back 
  in 
  the 
  mountains. A jagged streak of lightning 
  flashed across the sky. 
  And then The Monster appeared! 
  The odor came first, that penetrating, 
  sickly sweet smell. The two youngsters 
  halted, terror-stricken. 
  Its long legs moving slowly, almost 
  creeping, the huge, loathsome bulk of The 
  Monster moved into view. It stopped short at 
  the sight of the panic-frozen girl and boy. 
  Then the girl screamed. A long, 
  frenzied scream of horror. 
  
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  38 
  Half a mile away, Doc Savage heard 
  that scream. His flake gold eyes blazed with 
  unaccustomed feeling. He launched himself 
  forward with blinding speed. 
  The boy and girl did not know that 
  help was on its way. It would not have aided 
  them if they had known. 
  Picking up speed with every stride, 
  The Monster raced toward them. 
  A thin yell came from the boy’s tight 
  lips, broke the spell that held him. He shoved 
  the girl face down in the mud. 
  Then he turned and ran—ran directly 
  toward The Monster! 
   
   
  DOC found the girl, still lying in the 
  mud. She was sobbing. She tried to talk, but 
  could not. 
  The bronze man surveyed the scene 
  rapidly. Lightning flashed. Far in the distance 
  was a small dot, a dot that appeared to 
  vanish. 
  The odor of The Monster was still in 
  the air, but it was disappearing rapidly. The 
  girl lifted her head. She recognized Doc. 
  “You didn’t save him!” she cried. “We 
  were to be so happy! Now he is gone! Gone!” 
  The bronze man lifted her to her feet, 
  his lips tightening slightly, but he did not 
  speak. It would do no good to tell her that he 
  had asked Herb Dwight to notify all the 
  colonists that he wanted them to remain 
  indoors until he and his aides could 
  investigate. Evidently this girl and her 
  sweetheart had not been given the message. 
  Monk, Ham and Long Tom rushed 
  up, breathing heavily. They had been with 
  Doc when they had heard the girl’s scream, 
  but the bronze man had far outdistanced 
  them. 
  Doc turned to Long Tom. “Take her 
  to her home,” he said quietly. 
  Gently, Long Tom took the girl’s arm. 
  Still sobbing, she was led away. 
  Ham’s face was serious. “It—it struck 
  again, Doc?” he asked. 
  The bronze man inclined his head 
  slightly. “It would appear so,” he said soberly. 
  He drew a flashlight, turned it on the ground. 
  Footprints of the boy were easy to follow. 
  They were wide-spaced, but wavering. 
  The footprints did not go far. The boy 
  had not had far to run to meet his fate. 
  And his body—or what was left of his 
  body—was not much farther along the trail. 
  Monk grew rather white around the 
  eyes. Ham set his jaw as tightly as he could, 
  and tried not to look. 
  Doc moved about cautiously, taking 
  care not to destroy any marks on the ground. 
  Then he knelt beside the body, examined it 
  carefully. 
  It seemed impossible that any animal 
  could wreak such havoc. But the evidence 
  was there. And the foul odor, just like that 
  which had been on the hair, still clung faintly 
  to the body. 
  The tracks showed clearly how the 
  giant beast had skidded to a stop, snatched 
  up its helpless victim, only to drop him a few 
  moments later. 
  Ham was looking at the boy’s head. 
  He recalled something about the legend he 
  had heard. “H-his hair was black, Doc,” he 
  said jerkily. “N-now if he’d been bronze-
  haired, maybe The Monster wouldn’t come 
  again. 
  For the boy’s heart was gone. 
   
   
  A SMALL man, hidden a hundred 
  yards away, didn’t hear Ham’s words, but he 
  was thinking the same thing. 
  The man wore only a breechcloth. 
  His copper-colored skin was oiled, and 
  dabbed with paint. His face had been made 
  hideous by long streaks about the eyes and 
  mouth. 
  He turned quickly, wiggled through 
  the grass as silently as a snake. When he 
  reached a small grove of trees he rose to his 
  feet and started to run. 
  Over one shoulder was a long bow. 
  He had arrows about his middle. 
  The Indians of Arcadia Valley had 
  shed civilization, had returned to the days of 
  their forebears. 
  Now they were planning a raid such 
  as never had been staged before. 
  Quite 
  a 
  different, 
  but 
  just 
  as 
  formidable, a foe was watching Doc and his 
  men from a small hill, not far from where the 
  boy’s body lay. 
  He was one of the men who had 
  made the attack at the plane. He did not see 
  the Indian slip away. His attention was 
  centered on Doc and his aides. 
  
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  39 
  The man had not run far after 
  escaping the gas bomb Doc had hurled. He 
  had remained hidden, and had trailed along 
  when the bronze man and his aides started 
  up the valley. 
  As Doc started to trace the tracks of 
  The Monster, the man grinned. He ducked off 
  the hill, down to a spot where he was well 
  concealed. 
  There was a pack on his back. A 
  small microphone dangled around his neck. 
  He waited until the thunder died for a 
  moment, then spoke into the microphone. 
  Not far away, the running Indian also 
  had dropped into a small valley. Two score of 
  warriors waited him there. 
  “It is time,” the small Indian said. 
  “The one we were told was coming is now 
  here.” 
  “The bronze-haired one, he is where 
  he can be seized?” asked one of the waiting 
  group. 
  The messenger grunted. In silence, 
  the others lifted their bows. All had guns, but 
  not with them. For the job they wanted to do, 
  arrows would serve their purpose best. 
  In single file, almost invisible in the 
  darkness, and making no sound, they left the 
  place where they had been concealed. 
   
   
  “IT seems incredible,” said Ham. 
  There was awe in the lawyer’s voice. 
  “Anything seems incredible to you 
  outta a courtroom,” said Monk. The hairy 
  chemist had regained some of his usual 
  spirits. But secretly, he also was amazed. 
  Footsteps of the giant beast had 
  disappeared. Doc alone did not seem 
  surprised. The bronze man retraced their 
  steps, appeared chiefly interested in the 
  individual footprints made by The Monster. 
  Rain was washing away some of the 
  detail, but the clear-cut prints made by the 
  huge feet were plain enough to make out the 
  faint markings of tiny hair along the sides. 
  Monk’s small eyes blinked. He 
  dropped behind, his huge fists clenched. 
  There was no reason for those footprints to 
  simply stop. 
  He bent over, trying to find some 
  clue to the mystery. There was a solid thump. 
  Monk did more than bend over. He went on 
  down, landing on his face in the mud.  
  Ham and Doc did not notice his 
  absence. The lawyer was also ranging wide 
  of the trail. 
  Then something collided with the 
  back of his head. It did not strike squarely. 
  Ham had just moved. He caught only a 
  glancing blow. But it staggered him. The 
  flashlight wavered in his hand. The beam of 
  the light caught a small object in its path. The 
  object was stuck in the mud, still quivering. 
  Ham gulped, incredulously. It was an 
  arrow. But the end was not sharp. It was dull 
  and had a heavy weight on it. The lawyer 
  opened his mouth to yell to Doc. 
  Two arrows struck him at the same 
  time. One caught him on a temple, the other 
  at the base of the jaw. The arrows had been 
  fired from close at hand, and were moving 
  swiftly. 
  Ham joined Monk on his face in the 
  mud. 
   
   
  DOC was closer to Ham. His 
  superkeen ears caught the sound of the 
  arrows as they struck the lawyer’s head. 
  Instantly, his flashlight went out. 
  And then all hell seemed to break 
  loose. The air was filled with a very storm of 
  arrows—and made hideous with sound. Two 
  score of Indians, screaming war whoops, 
  charged from all directions. 
  The man with the portable radio 
  heard the whoops. He turned pale, started to 
  run down the trail over which Doc and his 
  aides had come. He ran squarely into a lean, 
  sickly appearing man. 
  Long Tom had left the girl at her 
  cabin, was on his way to rejoin Doc. He didn’t 
  know who had run into him, but he didn’t stop 
  to ask questions. 
  The electrical wizard didn’t look like a 
  fighter. That is what his opponent thought. 
  For that reason, the other didn’t even try to 
  draw a gun, he swung a hard fist. He brought 
  the fist up from the ground. 
  Had it landed, Long Tom would have 
  been out of the fight. It didn’t. Long Tom 
  struck first. He buried one fist in the other’s 
  belly, brought the second over in a looping 
  swing that caught the man on the jaw. The 
  man went down. 
  Long Tom leaped over him, raced 
  down the trail. 
  
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  40 
   
  Doc could have escaped ordinary opponents with ease. But the Indians  
  were experts at ambush. They closed in on him, swinging clubs. 
   
  A human volcano seemed in action 
  ahead of him. Men were erupting from all 
  sides, only to pick themselves up, dive back 
  into the fray. 
  Doc could have escaped ordinary 
  opponents with ease. The Indians were 
  different. They were experts at ambush. They 
  closed in on him, some swinging clubs. 
  The battle with the bronze devil 
  became a new legend. 
  Doc’s hands were flicking out with 
  incredible speed. Man after man toppled 
  over. 
  Long Tom hurled himself into the fray 
  recklessly. That was a mistake. He was 
  engulfed, went down almost at once. A club 
  caught him over the top of the head while he 
  was still yards from Doc. 
  Brilliant light flooded the scene 
  suddenly. Doc had tossed a small flare high 
  into the air. By its light he could see the 
  prone bodies of his three aides, knew they 
  were not seriously hurt. 
  Forty against one are heavy odds. 
  Doc had devices with him which could have 
  equalized those odds. But he did not use 
  them. He went down, seemingly because a 
  human wave had swarmed over him. 
  
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  41 
  The shouting Indians did not know 
  that he had permitted himself to be taken 
  prisoner. 
  His aides didn’t know that, either. 
  Monk was the first to recover. 
  The 
  hairy 
  chemist 
  shook 
  Ham 
  angrily. Ham roused, got to his feet. They 
  found Long Tom without difficulty. 
  But Doc was gone! 
  “And it was Indians,” said Ham, for 
  once ungrammatical. 
  “What are we waiting for?” rasped 
  Long Tom. “We’re going to need help.” 
  The aides started to run. They 
  headed toward the cabins of the Arcadia 
  colonists. Fear gave them speed. 
  Thunder roared. The rain came down 
  with redoubled fury. 
   
   
  Chapter XIII 
  A SACRIFICE IS TAKEN 
   
  AT about that time, a strange 
  meeting was going on at Herb Dwight’s 
  home. Nearly every able-bodied man in the 
  colony was crowded into the small rooms. 
  A tall man with hawk-nose and 
  piercing eyes was taking the lead. “Even-
  Swap” Crowel was one of the newcomers to 
  the colony. He had won his nickname by 
  always wanting to trade, to “swap-even.” 
  Usually those who traded with him found they 
  had not come out even. 
  “The Monster’s struck again,” he 
  proclaimed loudly. “The famous Doc Savage 
  was almost on the spot, so to say, and what 
  did he do? He did nothing!” 
  There was a murmur of agreement 
  from the packed rooms. 
  “But we oughtta give him a fair 
  chance,” Herb Dwight put in anxiously. “He 
  has just arrived; he hasn’t had an opportunity 
  even to investigate yet.” 
  “I say let’s get out!” Even-Swap 
  bellowed loudly. “Let’s get out while at least 
  some of us are still alive.” 
  The murmur of approval grew louder, 
  then died down. 
  Herb Dwight’s shoulders set, he 
  glared about defiantly. “I’m goin’ to stay. I’m 
  not goin’ to lose everything I’ve got here—a 
  chance for a real home, a comfortable living.” 
  Even-Swap 
  Crowel 
  snorted 
  disgustedly. “I’ve got some land down in 
  Arizona. Ain’t worth much, but it would be 
  worth more to yuh there, than this will up 
  here, with you dead. I’ll swap even.” 
  Herb Dwight looked at him with eyes 
  that suddenly narrowed. “Seems to me I’ve 
  heard you try to trade others around here for 
  their land,” he said coldly. “There wouldn’t be 
  any particular reason for you wantin’ us all to 
  get out, would there?” 
  Even-Swap laughed harshly, his 
  hawk-nose quivering. “Hell, no, I’m only 
  trying to save your stubborn old life—” 
  Monk and Ham burst into the room, 
  Long Tom close behind them. 
  “The 
  Indians 
  got 
  Doc!” 
  Monk 
  bellowed. “Get your guns, we’ve got to 
  rescue him!” 
  There was a moment of startled 
  silence. 
  Even-Swap 
  looked 
  triumphant. 
  “See—your famous Doc Savage can’t even 
  handle a bunch of scrawny Indians,” he 
  sneered. 
  Monk’s big shoulders hunched, his 
  squat head jutted forward. Small noises 
  came from him as he stepped forward. He 
  threw up one huge fist. It caught Even-Swap 
  under the chin. The other almost turned a 
  backward somersault. 
  “I thought you guys were men!” Monk 
  snapped. “Did we come up here to try and 
  save a bunch of babies?” 
  Argument broke out. A few—a very 
  few—were in favor of helping hunt for Doc. 
  The others were frightened. Monk did the 
  arguing. Ham and Long Tom slipped outside. 
  No one saw them leave. 
  “If we knew it was only Indians,” one 
  colonist said hesitantly. 
  “It is Indians, I tell you!” Monk roared. 
  “Your ancestors fought Indians. Are you—” 
  Blam! Blam! 
  Lead tore through the roof over their 
  heads. Loud war whoops came from outside. 
  They sounded as if coming from two dozen 
  throats, and from all sides. 
  “W-why, the Indians have attacked 
  us!” Herb Dwight breathed incredulously. 
  The 
  others 
  said 
  nothing. 
  They 
  reached for nearby guns. 
  Fighting the terrible menace of The 
  Monster was one thing; fighting Indians was 
  
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  42 
  something else. They weren’t afraid of 
  Indians. 
  One or two thought it strange that the 
  war whoops stopped when they got outside, 
  but that, they reasoned, might be because 
  the Indians were playing cagy. They raced 
  along behind Monk without question. A few 
  moments later, Ham and Long Tom joined 
  the rear of the procession. 
  A broad grin was on Ham’s face. He 
  chuckled with silent mirth. 
  “First time I ever knew I could be 
  such a good Indian,” he said to Long Tom. 
   
   
  THE Indians who had seized Doc did 
  not waste words. With the bronze man tied 
  so tightly that he could hardly move a 
  muscle, they had set off at a fast pace. 
  They left the low hills, with scattered 
  woods, and came to a broad meadow. The 
  leader grunted. Doc was dropped to the 
  ground. 
  Four stakes were driven into the soft 
  earth. They were driven so deeply it would 
  have taken an exceptionally powerful man to 
  have pulled up even one of them. 
  Doc was thrown flat on his back. 
  Ropes were fastened to each wrist and each 
  ankle. One end of the ropes were tied to the 
  stakes. 
  The bronze man was spread-eagled 
  on the ground, helpless. 
  Doc made no move. He did not show 
  that he was even conscious. His breathing 
  was slow, unhurried. 
  The leader grunted a signal. Silent 
  as shadows, the Indians slipped into the 
  background. A few cast anxious glances 
  toward the mountains to the north. It was 
  from there The Monster came. 
  Another man was watching those 
  mountains. He was the man with the portable 
  radio, who had been knocked out by Long 
  Tom. He had recovered just in time to see 
  the Indians carry Doc away. 
  A sly grin was on his face as he 
  followed. 
  When he saw Doc tied helplessly on 
  the ground, his grin grew to an evil smirk. A 
  deadly automatic was in his fist. 
  As 
  the 
  Indians 
  retreated, 
  he 
  advanced. But despite the fact that Doc was 
  bound, apparently unconscious and unable 
  to move, he advanced cautiously. 
  Doc’s eyes came open. His ear was 
  close to the ground. He heard the other’s 
  approach. 
  The bronze man made no move. Nor 
  did he yell out.  
  The man with the gun came close—
  so close that he could not miss. He raised 
  the gun. 
  “No 
  use 
  taking 
  chances,” 
  he 
  muttered. “This way we’ll be sure.” He 
  squeezed the trigger. 
  Blam! 
  The man with the gun went over on 
  his back. His shot went up in the air. 
  A small object had appeared in Doc’s 
  hand. It was shaped somewhat like a knife. 
  In fact, it did have a sharp blade. But in the 
  center of the knife was a small hole. It was 
  an ingeniously contrived pistol. 
  The 
  bronze 
  man 
  secured 
  the 
  weapon concealed in his sleeve when he 
  heard the gunman approach. As the other 
  had raised his weapon, Doc had fired. 
  The bullet was not solid. It was of the 
  mercy type that Doc had perfected. But it hit 
  with a solid blow, and when it caught the 
  other in the face, it had knocked him to his 
  back. The quick-working anaesthetic made 
  him unconscious instantly. 
  The Indians heard the shot. They 
  had not gone far. One drew a knife, rushed 
  forward. 
  “The Monster wants the heart of a 
  live bronze-haired man, not a dead one!” he 
  shrieked. 
  The gunman had no chance. He was 
  senseless. Something happened Doc had 
  not counted on. The knife-gun carried only 
  one shot, it was useless. 
  Still shrieking, the Indian plunged the 
  blade of his hunting knife into the heart of the 
  helpless gunman. The next moment he 
  ripped the scalp from the other’s head. 
  Thunder roared. The Indian yelled, 
  dropped the scalp and ran. 
  A small object had appeared in the 
  north. In the space of seconds it became 
  much larger. The Monster was charging 
  directly toward Doc! 
   
   
  
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  43 
  THE sound of the shot and the 
  Indian war whoop gave Doc’s aides and the 
  colonists the clue they needed. They were 
  not far away. 
  Monk, Ham and Long Tom shouted 
  orders. They all had been army officers. 
  Under their direction, the colonists spread out 
  in a thin skirmish line. They advanced on the 
  double, weapons ready. 
  A majority of the colonists carried 
  rifles, a few were armed only with pistols. 
  Doc’s men carried strange weapons. 
  In appearance they were somewhat like 
  sawed-off shotguns. But there were big, 
  circular cylinders for bullets, and at the front 
  end of the barrels were large disks. 
  The weapons were really rapid-firing 
  elephant guns, shooting slugs large enough 
  to stop a charging rhino, and with force 
  enough to penetrate chilled steel. The disk at 
  the end of the barrel was a recoil check, so 
  that a man could fire without being knocked 
  to the ground. 
  Adapted by Doc, they were probably 
  the most deadly weapons ever conceived. 
  Using explosive bullets, they could have 
  stopped a charging tank. 
  They were part of the equipment 
  Long Tom had brought from New York at 
  Doc’s instructions, and were designed for 
  cases just like this. 
  The colonists were yelling shrilly. 
  They still thought they were hunting only for 
  Indians. 
  And then they saw The Monster! 
  It was still half a mile off, but it was 
  coming with the tremendous speed of a 
  racing car. Its eight long legs were eating up 
  the distance. A lightning flash made every 
  feature of its loathsome appearance plain. 
  The colonists might have stopped, 
  might have turned and run. Most of them 
  wanted to. But then came the first whiff of the 
  foul, sickly sweet odor of The Monster. 
  And in the same instant, Monk lifted 
  his rapid-firer gun, kept the trigger down. 
  B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r! 
  The blast was like that of a dozen 
  cannons firing at once. The very roar sent 
  renewed courage through the colonists. Their 
  guns came up. A hail of lead rained toward 
  The Monster. 
  But it was still out of range. It did not 
  pause, did not hesitate. 
  And directly in front of it was Doc 
  Savage! 
   
   
  THE 
  Indians 
  would 
  have 
  been 
  surprised, then, if they could have seen the 
  bronze man. He was no longer tied. The rope 
  loops were off his wrists and ankles, had 
  been removed from his neck. 
  His marvelous physical development 
  was the answer to that. Every muscle in his 
  body was exercised and trained far more 
  than the ordinary man’s. 
  Muscles had rippled in his wrists; the 
  rope had been forced back up; his fingers 
  had doubled back with the open blade of the 
  knife-gun, had severed the bonds. 
  But Doc did not move. He lay quietly, 
  seemingly even expectantly. 
  There was a small object on his 
  chest. That object was trained directly on The 
  Monster. Had any one who witnessed the 
  scene been wearing black glasses, they 
  would have been amazed. For then they 
  would have seen that light was coming from 
  that object. The light was trained on The 
  Monster. 
  Monk, Ham and Long Tom did not 
  know that, nor did they know that Doc was 
  free, that he could move at any instant. 
  Something like a moan came from 
  Ham; he tried to put on even more speed. 
  Monk darted to one side. He was yelling 
  shrilly. 
  For the first time, The Monster 
  seemed to be aware that there were many 
  men in front of it, instead of just one victim. It 
  slowed. 
  Ham raised his gun. And the foul 
  odor suddenly was dense in the air. 
  Frantically, Ham tried to tighten his grip on 
  the trigger. His muscles refused to obey; his 
  tongue was tight in his mouth. Slowly, the big 
  gun fell to the ground. 
  The Monster came on with a slow, 
  stalking gait that was even more ominous 
  than its rushing speed of an instant before. 
  On all sides guns were dropping 
  from men’s hands. Almost as one, the 
  colonists stopped, frozen. The terrible scent 
  had done its work. 
  Ham 
  realized 
  his 
  senses 
  were 
  reeling, felt a quick, almost irresistible 
  impulse to run directly toward The Monster. 
  
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  44 
  He knew he had to do something—anything, 
  otherwise all was lost. 
  Monk’s gun had slipped from his big 
  fists. He, too, felt the pull, the hypnotic 
  attraction of The Monster, felt he must run 
  toward it. But he, too, knew that he had to do 
  something. 
  With a desperate jerk, Ham grabbed 
  a queer-shaped pistol from his belt. His arms 
  were leaden; his muscles were trying not to 
  obey the impulse of his brain. The lawyer’s 
  brain was well-trained. Slowly the pistol went 
  up; the muzzle pointed directly at the sky. He 
  pulled the trigger. 
  Ham, fighting with every ounce of will 
  power, directed his short legs to run. They 
  moved, slowly at first; then with more speed. 
  They ran not toward The Monster, but to one 
  side. 
  There was a sudden burst of light, a 
  tremendous flare that bathed the plain in its 
  glow. The gun Ham had fired had been a 
  Very pistol; it had discharged the big light 
  that troops used in the war for night fighting, 
  made the scene as light as day. 
  And 
  then 
  an 
  amazing 
  thing 
  happened. 
  The Monster was almost upon Doc. 
  It seemed it would seize him in the next 
  instant. 
  It didn’t. It turned, flashed into action 
  with a speed that seemed impossible. It took 
  one tremendous leap, almost vanished from 
  the range of light. It leaped again— 
   
   
  MONK, head down, was running for 
  all he was worth. He had fought his way clear 
  from the spot where the odor of The Monster 
  was strongest. He had only one idea in mind: 
  he wanted to divert the attention of The 
  Monster, lure it from the spot where Doc lay. 
  He succeeded. He was directly in its 
  path. The huge beast, its bulk rearing as high 
  as a two-story building, did not seem to 
  pause, but its pincers went out. 
  Then Monk screamed. He had not 
  intended to, he didn’t want to. The shriek was 
  torn from his lips in spite of himself. 
  The Monster swooped him up. It 
  leaped again. The next second, and it was 
  gone. 
  Doc Savage was on his feet and 
  running. He, alone, had not been affected by 
  the foul odor, the queer, hypnotic smell that 
  came from the huge beast. 
  Ham was frankly crying. Long Tom’s 
  features were strained. Doc had been saved, 
  but Monk was gone. 
  Ham realized, now that Doc had not 
  been helpless, that for some reason of his 
  own, he had been lying quietly and silently. 
  And knowing the bronze man’s amazing 
  physical prowess, the lawyer knew that Doc 
  probably could have escaped without aid. 
  But the light evidently had frightened 
  The Monster. 
  Now Monk was gone. 
  And still the rain came down steadily. 
   
   
  Chapter XIV 
  BEAUTY IN DISTRESS 
   
  THE colonists were fumbling around, 
  like men coming out from under ether. The 
  wind and rain were clearing the air. The odor 
  of The Monster was vanishing. As it 
  vanished, the men’s senses returned. 
  And with the ability to think came 
  blind, panic-stricken fear. They did not pause 
  to pick up their guns. They did not stop to ask 
  questions. The colonists turned and ran—ran 
  like men possessed by demons. 
  Doc’s face was grave. From his nose 
  he took two small objects, about as big 
  around as pencils, but not as long, and made 
  of porous material. 
  The objects were antidotes he had 
  prepared in the plane’s laboratory to combat 
  the strange effects of The Monster’s odor. He 
  had given similar objects to his aides. In the 
  excitement they had forgotten to use them, 
  had been affected by the odor, had been 
  unable to use the powerful guns they carried. 
  Ham controlled himself with an effort. 
  He had fought with Monk, had quarreled with 
  him continually. But there was real affection 
  between the two. 
  “The old ape,” he said softly, and 
  tried to keep his voice steady. “He thought he 
  was giving his life to save you, Doc.” 
  The bronze man nodded. His flake 
  gold eyes were sober. “The least we can do 
  is keep faith with him, and conquer The 
  Monster,” he said quietly. 
  Something in his voice brought Long 
  Tom’s head up sharply. He, too, was shaken, 
  
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  45 
  but he tried to hide it. “You learned 
  something, Doc?” he asked hopefully. 
  “I do not know for sure. I think so,” 
  the bronze man said. 
  A suspicion was forming in Ham’s 
  mind, also, but it didn’t make sense. It looked 
  as though a gang of men might be wanting to 
  buy up the land in the valley, possibly 
  through Even-Swap Crowel, and were trying 
  to take advantage of the terror created by 
  The Monster. 
  But there could be no valid reason 
  for that. Government geologists had reported 
  no oil formations, nor had any trace of 
  valuable minerals ever been found in the 
  valley. The land was good only for farming; it 
  was valuable only to men like the colonists. 
  Besides, who would want to live in 
  the valley, with The Monster still running 
  loose? 
   
   
  DOC and his men searched until 
  daylight. They found no trace of Monk. 
  Evidently he had not been killed at once. 
  Footprints of The Monster vanished 
  abruptly a short distance from the spot where 
  Monk had been seized. Search as they 
  would, they could find no sign to show where 
  it had landed again. 
  But as witnesses had testified the 
  giant beast was capable of jumping great 
  distances, this was not so surprising. It might 
  have turned in any direction and the 
  footprints escaped detection. 
  At dawn they returned to the big 
  plane. Ham and Long Tom were dejected. 
  Doc went at once to the plane’s laboratory. 
  Opening his shirt, the bronze man 
  removed the small, oblong object that had 
  been suspended there. It was a novel 
  camera. From it he took a long roll of film, 
  developed it rapidly. 
  The camera was one of Doc’s 
  devising. Attached to it was a light of great 
  strength, but it threw black light, not white. 
  The film used was of the type to take 
  photographs under infra-ray beams. 
  While Doc had been lying quietly, 
  apparently waiting to be seized, he had in 
  reality been taking pictures of The Monster. 
  The infra-ray lights had not been noticed by 
  the giant beast. 
  Swiftly, he examined the film. His 
  low, trilling sound came suddenly. 
  Long Tom and Ham rushed to his 
  side. “Find something, Doc?” Ham asked 
  hopefully. 
  “Something very strange,” the bronze 
  man said. “This film shows The Monster as it 
  approached me. The detail is perfect. It also 
  shows the action as the beast whirled to go 
  after Monk.” 
  He set up a small movie projector. 
  “There is one other thing it shows. That is 
  what I want you to watch for. It is a clue of 
  the highest importance.” 
   
   
  THE colonists were not waiting for 
  further investigation by Doc. Every home was 
  the scene of great activity. Men were loading 
  their possessions into old cars and into 
  wagons. Women and children stood by, silent 
  and spiritless. 
  The colonists were going. They were 
  abandoning their homes and the high hopes 
  they had felt. The fear of The Monster had 
  conquered thought of all else. 
  A few were hesitant. Herb Dwight 
  was one of these. But even his resolution 
  had been shaken. And a number of men 
  were circulating among the colonists, relating 
  again and again the long list of victims slain 
  by 
  The 
  Monster, 
  and 
  telling 
  of 
  the 
  impossibility of combating it. 
  Even-Swap Crowel was one of 
  these. But now, Even-Swap was making no 
  effort to trade land in Arizona for land the 
  colonists were abandoning. 
  He had his furniture and goods 
  packed in a car surprisingly better than those 
  used by the average colonist. He, also, was 
  ready to leave. 
  Even-Swap saw Doc and his aids 
  return to their plane. The hawk-nosed man 
  signaled sharply, and one of those who had 
  been urging the colonists to lose no time in 
  leaving, slipped to his side. 
  Even-Swap gave crisp orders. The 
  other, a burly, thick-chested man with the 
  broken nose of an ex-prizefighter, nodded. 
  He crept close to the plane. 
  The pug was hiding near by when 
  Doc spoke to Long Tom and Ham. His face 
  changed color abruptly. He turned and ran. 
  When he found Even-Swap, he talked swiftly. 
  
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  46 
  Even-Swap’s face also altered; it 
  became suffused with rage. 
  “I don’t like to do it, it ain’t my mob!” 
  he raged. “But we’ve got to act! We can’t 
  have things spoiled now!” 
  He ran to his car, grabbed a tank that 
  had a long hose attached. The tank was 
  heavy, but he carried it without difficulty, 
  running as rapidly as possible toward the 
  plane. 
  The colonists did not notice. There 
  was too much confusion in the hurried 
  exodus. 
  As he neared the plane, Even-Swap 
  turned a small valve on the tank. A 
  tremendous sheet of flame broke from the 
  end of the hose. 
  Breathing heavily, Even-Swap turned 
  that flame on the plane. It completely 
  enveloped the big ship in fire. 
   
   
  DOC had just started to show the 
  film in the movie projector. The sudden heat 
  from the flame-thrower was tremendous. 
  Metal wing struts melted, gasoline tanks 
  exploded. 
  “Blazes!” shouted Ham. It was more 
  than just an exclamation. It was a literal 
  statement of fact. The entire plane was 
  ablaze. 
  Chemistry and Habeas Corpus had 
  been left in the plane when Doc and his 
  aides made their night trip. Now the pig was 
  squealing in fright; the big ape was hopping 
  about madly, his fur smoking. 
  Doc did not waste time. He ripped 
  open a small door in the laboratory, brought 
  out what appeared to be thin, transparent 
  sheets. 
  Ham and Long Tom knew what they 
  were. They grabbed them. Chemistry and 
  Habeas Corpus were covered first. Then they 
  slipped into two suits of the transparent 
  material. Invented by Doc long before, they 
  were fire suits, capable of withstanding 
  extreme heat. 
  But the heat from the flame-thrower 
  was as strong as the blast of an acetylene 
  blow torch. Even in the suits, the skin turned 
  red, hair curled. Life could not long be 
  sustained. 
  Doc did not hesitate. He grabbed a 
  small metal ball, opened two tiny jets. There 
  was a quick, hissing sound. What looked like 
  a giant soap bubble began to form. Doc and 
  his men were inside the bubble. 
  The bronze man manipulated the tiny 
  jets again, and the big bubble expanded 
  more. It became a mass of foam, pressed the 
  fire back. Calmly, Doc stepped forward, the 
  others at his heels. 
  The big bubble rolled along before 
  him, forcing the flame back. Without hurry, 
  they walked right through the fuselage. Only 
  the metal skeleton of the plane remained, 
  and part of that had melted. 
   
   
  EVEN-SWAP’S 
  mouth 
  dropped 
  open. He thought he was seeing things. He 
  had believed it impossible for anyone to 
  escape the fiery hell he had created. 
  Desperately he swung the hose of 
  the flame-thrower so that the three men were 
  directly in its path. The fire stopped when it 
  hit the bubble, stopped as if it had run into a 
  blank wall. The three men did not stop, they 
  came directly toward him. 
  Even-Swap’s 
  nerve 
  broke. 
  He 
  dropped the flamethrower and fled. 
  Doc turned off the jets. The big 
  bubble collapsed. It had been made by quick 
  expansion of gas compressed into the metal 
  ball, the walls of the bubble being of a fire-
  quenching foam perfected to a degree even 
  higher than the foam used for fighting oil 
  blazes. 
  Ham threw off his fire suit. He pulled 
  out his mercy pistol, started to fire. Doc 
  knocked the pistol aside. 
  “The film is destroyed. This man may 
  be the only clue we have left,” Doc explained 
  swiftly. 
   
   
  EVEN-SWAP had started to run 
  toward the colony. The flames from the 
  burning plane had attracted the attention of 
  the colonists, however, and they were 
  running toward the scene. Crowel saw he 
  would be trapped. 
  He turned, dashed toward the distant 
  mountains. Doc raced in pursuit. Behind him 
  trailed Ham and Long Tom, with Chemistry 
  and Habeas bringing up the rear. 
   
   
  
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  47 
   
  Doc and his men were inside what looked like a giant soap bubble. 
  The bubble became a mass of foam, pressed the flames back. 
   
  The 
  bronze 
  man 
  could 
  have 
  overtaken Even-Swap at any time. He made 
  no attempt to do so. Instead, he loafed along. 
  And he took care to keep concealed as much 
  as possible. 
  Even-Swap cast desperate glances 
  behind. Then he decided he had thrown off 
  pursuit. But he did not pause. He merely 
  altered his course. He headed directly for the 
  mountains in the north. 
  The trail led upward swiftly. It wound 
  along for a time beside a mountain stream. 
  Then Crowel plunged off the beaten path, 
  started to climb through thick trees. 
  Doc’s flake gold eyes glinted. There 
  seemed no doubt but that Even-Swap was 
  
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  48 
  heading for a hiding place, probably where 
  others of his gang were concealed. He might 
  even be going toward the spot where The 
  Monster hid. 
  Then came the scream. It was a 
  woman’s scream, high and piercing. 
  Even-Swap heard it, but he did not 
  stop. Rather, he redoubled his speed. Doc 
  did stop. He turned in the direction from 
  which the scream had come. 
  Barbara Hughes appeared far to the 
  right. She broke into a small clearing. Her 
  clothes were torn from running through trees. 
  Her eyes were wide and staring. Fear was on 
  her features. 
  Close behind her came several men. 
  The girl was running rapidly, but it was clear 
  she could not escape. Her pursuers were 
  gaining with every leap. 
  Doc hesitated, but only for an instant. 
  If he went to the girl’s rescue, Even-Swap 
  would escape. He might lose the only chance 
  he had of solving the mystery of The 
  Monster. But if he didn’t go to the girl’s aid, 
  there was no telling what might happen to 
  her. 
  The bronze man whirled; he ran 
  toward the girl. 
  Barbara Hughes saw him. For a 
  moment her face lighted with hope. Then it 
  changed. 
  “Run, get away!” she shouted. 
  One of her pursuers was almost up 
  to her, he reached out one hand and 
  grabbed. Her dress ripped at the shoulder. 
  She turned, raked the other’s face with her 
  finger nails. The man bellowed with pain, and 
  turned her loose. 
  The girl’s cry had warned the others. 
  They saw Doc. Instantly, their tactics 
  changed. They paid no more attention to the 
  girl. They dropped, and pulled out guns. 
  “Save yourself, Doc Savage!” the girl 
  cried. 
  The bronze man did not hesitate. 
  Lead rained about him. Some of the shots 
  struck him. 
  He was wearing his bullet-proof 
  underwear. The bullets merely bounced off 
  harmlessly. As he ran, Doc pulled a thin cape 
  from his pocket, and put it over his head. 
  That would protect him against being shot in 
  the head. 
   
   
  FAR down the mountainside, Ham 
  and Long Tom heard the sound of the shots, 
  realized that Doc must have encountered 
  opposition. They increased their speed. 
  But fast as they went, they could not 
  keep up with Chemistry. The long-armed ape 
  was very much at home in the big trees. He 
  swung along at a flashing clip. And he had no 
  difficulty in following Doc’s trail. 
  Chemistry was attached to Ham. He 
  had a great adoration for Monk, and had 
  followed the hairy chemist around for hours. 
  But he had even more respect for Doc. 
  Probably because as an animal he could 
  sense the attitude of humans, he knew that 
  Doc was the leader, that all his men turned to 
  him. 
  And Chemistry had been in many 
  fights. He knew the sound of gunfire and 
  what it meant. 
  As Doc neared the first of the 
  gunmen, the man leaped up in terror, tried to 
  run. He couldn’t understand why his bullets 
  had had no effect. 
  One of Doc’s arms floated out. His 
  hand seemed scarcely to touch the other’s 
  neck, but the man went down, the nerve at 
  the base of his brain paralyzed. 
  There were four other attackers. 
  They were bunched. They were typical 
  gangsters, hard of eye and accustomed to 
  rough-and-tumble fights. 
  Doc plowed into them without pause. 
  He was met by a storm of swinging fists. Gun 
  butts were in some of those fists. Others held 
  blackjacks. 
  The bronze man’s head appeared to 
  fade back as the blows came toward him. 
  Gun butts and blackjacks struck only empty 
  air. 
  His two big hands caught the necks 
  of the closest gangsters. He swung their 
  heads together with force enough to bring 
  quick unconsciousness. 
  The other two sought to run. Once 
  more Doc’s hands flicked out, pressed the 
  nerves at the base of their skulls. They joined 
  their companions in untroubled slumber. 
  The fight had been a brief one. But 
  Even-Swap had disappeared. So had the girl. 
  Doc’s lips came together slightly. 
  The girl had shouted a warning. She had 
  indicated clearly that this time, at least, she 
  
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  49 
  was friendly. But she had not stayed to help 
  or explain. 
  There came a crash of breaking tree 
  limbs, and sounds of a scuffle. Doc raced 
  toward the sound. 
  The girl had tried to run away, but 
  she had not gotten far. She had been spotted 
  from above. 
  Chemistry, 
  looking 
  absurdly 
  like 
  Monk, had one long arm about her neck, his 
  furry paw over her mouth. With the other 
  arm, he had caught her just above the 
  elbows, was holding her so she could not 
  move. 
  Now he was lumbering forward, 
  carrying his struggling burden awkwardly. He 
  looked very pleased with himself. 
  “That will do, Chemistry,” Doc said 
  quietly. “You did very well.” 
  Chemistry beamed under the praise. 
  He set the girl to her feet. She was gasping, 
  and her face flushed with anger. 
  “Lieutenant Colonel Mayfair, I never 
  thought you would treat a girl so roughly—” 
  she began. Then she turned, saw that 
  Chemistry, not Monk, had been the one who 
  had seized her. Her flush became scarlet. 
  “However, I think Chemistry did just 
  right,” Doc said calmly. “You have a great 
  many things which you might explain, which 
  would help. Are you ready to talk?” 
  The flush left the girl’s face, it 
  became white. Fear returned to her eyes. 
  “I—I—” Sobs shook her small frame. 
  “I—I’m afraid,” she said. “B-but, I’ll talk.” 
   
   
  Chapter XV 
  THE GIRL’S STORY 
   
  “I—I REALLY am a newspaper 
  woman, and I was trapped, just as you were, 
  although they tried to make it look as if I were 
  in with them,” the girl said. 
  “I know,” Doc nodded. 
  The girl started. “B-but how could 
  you know?” 
  “Your city editor repeated to me the 
  message you sent through Deeter,” Doc said 
  quietly. “You said it was ‘thirty,’ which in 
  newspaper parlance meant the end for you.” 
  “I should have known you would 
  understand, but I didn’t see how you could 
  ever escape from that horrible crematory. It—
  it was terrible, and I was helpless. I was 
  watched every minute. I couldn’t call for aid.” 
  “Tell me what happened,” Doc said. 
  The girl spoke swiftly. She had 
  hoped to escape from Deeter and call help 
  for Doc and his men. Barge had prevented 
  that. He had taken her with him. 
  “I knew that if I stood any chance of 
  getting away alive, and of helping others 
  later, I had to play along,” she said, and 
  blushed. “I—I made Barge think I had fallen 
  for him, and that I really wanted to go along 
  on his account. 
  “Actually, I was hoping I could learn 
  what The Monster was, could learn some 
  way to save those poor people in Arcadia.” 
  “Yes?” Doc prompted. 
  “We went to a hide-out farther up 
  here in the mountains,” she explained. “But 
  Barge 
  didn’t 
  really 
  trust 
  me. 
  I 
  was 
  blindfolded. I only could learn a few things.” 
  “And those things?” 
  The girl’s face paled, she started to 
  tremble again. “Something big, something 
  tremendously big, is afoot, Mr. Savage,” she 
  breathed. “I do not know just what the full 
  extent is, but I do know it is far beyond 
  anything I ever imagined before. 
  “There is a huge canyon, partly 
  concealed by big trees, partly hidden in the 
  form of a natural cave. Hundreds, possibly 
  thousands of men are there. I did not see 
  them, but I could hear them. Day and night 
  there is the murmur of voices.” 
  Doc looked thoughtful. 
  “I heard other things, too,” the girl 
  continued. “I heard the sound of many 
  planes, coming and going. Always there 
  seemed some activity. The sound of those 
  planes could not be heard in Arcadia. I’m 
  sure, because of the mountain in between. 
  And I”—she hesitated, seemed to shrink—” I 
  smelled 
  something, 
  something 
  fearful. 
  Something that seemed to smell just like the 
  newspaper accounts of The Monster that has 
  been killing Arcadia colonists.” 
  The bronze man nodded. He had 
  expected that. For a moment he looked at 
  the girl without speaking, his hypnotic eyes 
  appeared to drill into her brain. 
  “And the leader of all this, did you 
  meet him?” he asked softly. 
  The girl shuddered. “I—I don’t know. 
  Perhaps. Sometimes while I was blindfolded, 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  50 
  I could sense someone near me, staring and 
  staring. I had the feeling that it was someone 
  I knew. But I didn’t see him. 
  “Barge kept urging me to marry him. 
  He said that would prove I had really come 
  there because of him, and that then he would 
  take off the blindfold, and that I could learn all 
  there was to know. But—” She shivered 
  violently. 
  “And 
  then 
  you 
  escaped,” 
  Doc 
  prompted. 
  The girl started. “Only an hour ago. 
  How stupid of me to forget that—that Hune 
  helped me,” she said excitedly. “Hune was 
  one of the guards. He—he fell for me. I 
  persuaded him to free me. He was afraid to 
  stay, so he came along when I ran. I know he 
  must be hiding some place close.” 
  Doc’s flake gold eyes lighted. 
  “He can tell you all you want to 
  know,” the girl said.  
   
   
  DOC’S rescue of the girl had not 
  gone 
  unnoticed. 
  Barge 
  Deeter 
  had 
  discovered Barbara Hughes’s escape almost 
  at once. As a small group went in immediate 
  pursuit, he organized a large party and 
  followed. He could not afford to have the girl 
  free now. 
  Big feet planted firmly, he watched 
  through binoculars as Doc overcame the 
  men who had caught up with the girl. 
  His face set in crafty lines. He spoke 
  softly to the score of men with him. They 
  fanned 
  out, 
  drifted 
  through 
  the 
  trees, 
  surrounding the spot where Doc and the girl 
  stood talking. 
  Barge Deeter took a small object 
  from one pocket. He had held a similar object 
  in his hand when John Alden died at the 
  Chicago airport. But none had seen it. And 
  none were destined to see it now. 
  Deeter grinned mirthlessly as he 
  slipped forward. Doc Savage had escaped 
  many traps. He would not be able to escape 
  this. 
  Despite his big feet, Deeter moved 
  silently. He was hidden close by as Doc and 
  the girl started looking for the guard who had 
  befriended her. 
  But 
  not 
  having 
  heard 
  their 
  conversation, he did not know what they 
  were looking for. He waited, watching them 
  closely. He noted with satisfaction that Doc 
  had removed the transparent helmet he had 
  worn when charging the gunmen. 
  Doc Savage had exceptionally keen 
  ears. But even he did not hear Barge 
  Deeter’s 
  approach. 
  Probably 
  that 
  was 
  because a mountain creek ran not far away, 
  drowning what noise the big man made. 
  Had Chemistry been present, he 
  might have detected Barge’s presence. But 
  Chemistry had gone back to lead Ham and 
  Long Tom to the scene. 
  The ape had been very proud of 
  himself, and when Doc no longer noticed 
  him, he felt he had to find an audience that 
  would. 
  Nor did Chemistry detect the fact that 
  he was being followed. Two men were 
  slipping down the mountainside behind him. 
  Barge Deeter had laid his trap well. 
   
   
  THE guard, Hune, was hiding not far 
  from where the girl and Doc had been 
  standing. He had been afraid to appear, 
  fearing Doc would mistake him for one of the 
  gunmen. And he had seen what happened to 
  those who opposed the bronze man. 
  His face was sheepish as he made 
  his presence known. 
  “You have befriended Miss Hughes,” 
  Doc said quietly. “For that I will have you 
  taken care of in a befitting manner.” 
  The bronze man did not explain that 
  what he meant was that he would have the 
  man sent to his hospital in Upstate New 
  York, where a delicate brain operation would 
  remove his memory of crime, return him to 
  the world as a good citizen. 
  “I am particularly interested in what 
  you can tell me about The Monster,” Doc 
  added. 
  Eyes shifted in the man’s weak face. 
  He looked about nervously, wet his lips. 
  “Okay, boss,” he said. 
  Barge Deeter lifted himself slightly in 
  the bushes where he was hiding. He raised 
  his hand containing the queer-shaped object. 
  It was almost at that instant, that 
  Chemistry rejoined Ham and Long Tom. The 
  lawyer and the electrician had found rough 
  going, were not making as good time as they 
  had expected. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  51 
  Chemistry bounded forward, trying to 
  talk. He made queer sounds. For a moment 
  he had the spotlight—but only for a moment. 
  Habeas Corpus, ranging on ahead, 
  squealed in sudden fury. The lean porker 
  darted ahead. 
  Two men had appeared on the trail 
  before him. They were the men sent by 
  Barge Deeter. 
  Ham and Long Tom caught sight of 
  them in the same instant. The dapper lawyer 
  had been getting rather tired of walking; the 
  prospect of action galvanized him into 
  sudden speed. His sword cane flashed in his 
  hand. 
  Long Tom gave a yell of triumph. He, 
  also, bounded ahead. 
  The men stopped, as if surprised. 
  Then they turned and ran. They ran at an 
  angle. They were leading Doc’s aides far 
  from the spot where the bronze man waited. 
  Ham and Long Tom did not know 
  that, nor did they know what was happening 
  to Doc. 
   
   
  DOC’S flake gold eyes were riveted 
  on the shifty face of the guard. The man 
  opened his mouth to speak. 
  Then it happened. 
  The narrow glade was suddenly filled 
  with the foul, sickly sweet smell that always 
  indicated The Monster was near. 
  The guard’s mouth opened. One 
  hand grasped his throat. He seemed to be 
  trying to speak, but could not. He fell forward 
  on his face. 
  The girl screamed. Her face became 
  ashen. Then her vocal cords seemed 
  affected, also. The scream cut off sharply. 
  Doc whirled, turned in the direction 
  which the guard had been facing. He took a 
  step that way. 
  Then he, too, threw one hand to his 
  throat. His tongue protruded from his mouth. 
  His lips worked without making a sound. 
  The big man of bronze took two 
  more steps. He seemed to be forcing himself 
  to go on where any other would have 
  dropped. 
  Slowly his knees folded. He went 
  down on his face.  
  Barge 
  Deeter 
  rushed 
  from 
  the 
  bushes. The girl stood as if paralyzed. From 
  all sides, other men came into view. Barbara 
  Hughes was trapped. 
  “And the mighty Doc Savage falls at 
  last,” Barge Deeter jeered. “At that, it was too 
  easy for him, and The Monster will not be 
  pleased. But—” 
  “But what?” prompted one of his 
  men. 
  “But we’ll take Doc along with us 
  anyway,” Barge Deeter grinned. “Even if he 
  is dead, The Monster may like to have the 
  heart of a bronze-haired man.” 
  Barge ordered his men into action. 
  Doc was wrapped in a blanket, thrown over a 
  burro that had been brought along. 
   
   
  Chapter XVI 
  TRAPPED 
   
  “JIMINY, but those fellows can run!” 
  Long Tom panted. Ham puffed in agreement. 
  The fellows certainly could run. But 
  Long Tom and Ham were no mean sprinters 
  themselves. They gained slowly. Chemistry 
  swung along overhead, plainly irked that the 
  others could not move as fast as he could. 
  Habeas Corpus was having difficulties. He 
  squealed angrily as he scrambled over rocks 
  and through underbrush. 
  “We’ll catch up with those guys,” 
  Long Tom breathed. “Maybe we can squeeze 
  a little of all this mystery out of them.” 
  There came a sound as if a giant bull 
  whip had been snapped. Cra-a-ack! 
  “W-what was that?” Ham spluttered. 
  They found out as they emerged on 
  the edge of a deep, rock-strewn gully. The 
  gully was at least a hundred feet deep and 
  nearly as wide. A slender, bark-stripped tree 
  was still waving in the air. Ham went back a 
  few yards and examined the underbrush. 
  “A catapult!” he yelled. “They shot 
  themselves over that gully. They’ll be way 
  ahead of us now.” The catapult had been so 
  constructed that it destroyed itself after it had 
  been used. 
  “Let’s go after them!” Long Tom 
  shouted. He started inching down the side of 
  the gully. It was precipitous and rocky. 
  Chemistry began jumping up and 
  down and making weird sounds. He seemed 
  to have other ideas on the subject. His 
  nostrils were quivering and he kept looking 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  52 
  upwind, which happened to be the direction 
  to the clearing where Doc had been attacked. 
  Long Tom got half a dozen feet down 
  the side of the gully, but the ape rushed after 
  him, pulled him back. 
  “Let me go, you nitwit,” Long Tom 
  protested. 
  “Wait,” Ham said. “Chemistry was 
  with Doc. He’s been right before on this trip. 
  Maybe we’d better follow him.” 
   
   
  CHEMISTRY 
  led 
  them 
  to 
  the 
  clearing where he had left Doc. There were 
  signs of a struggle. The body of the guard 
  who had befriended Barbara Hughes lay at 
  one side of the clearing. 
  Habeas Corpus squealed, tried to 
  run. Ham stopped him. There was a faint 
  odor still in the air, the odor they had first 
  smelled in Chicago, the same smell that 
  accompanied The Monster. 
  “He’s been killed just like John Alden 
  was,” Ham said. “Gosh, I wonder if they got 
  Doc?” 
  Long Tom muttered a noncommital 
  answer and began pawing through a small 
  canvas bag he carried. He pulled out a queer 
  pair of glasses. The lenses were about the 
  size of small cans of condensed milk. They 
  were black. Long Tom put them on and 
  began to go over the ground in slow scrutiny. 
  “Doc was in a fight,” he reported. “He 
  didn’t leave on his feet.” 
  Long Tom was using the special 
  fluoroscopic glasses developed by Doc 
  Savage. It was a prearranged method of 
  following each other if they got separated. 
  Doc’s shoes were covered with a fluorescent 
  chemical which was invisible to the naked 
  eye. But with the queer black glasses, his 
  footprints would glow like a neon sign. 
  “No trace. They got him all right,” 
  Long Tom said slowly. 
  Ham was already moving. The trail 
  was easy to follow. The burro that had 
  carried Doc Savage’s body left hoofprints in 
  the ground. Long Tom followed behind. He 
  still wore the queer glasses. 
  Ham muttered to himself as he 
  strode along. The story of The Monster’s 
  hunger for the heart of a bronze-haired man 
  kept running through his mind. Ham didn’t 
  like to think about The Monster. He 
  remembered how it had seized Monk. 
  “I wish Johnny were here,” the 
  lawyer said suddenly. 
   
   
  No one would take "Johnny," whose real 
  name is William Harper Littlejohn, for a man 
  of adventurous spirit. An archaeologist of 
  worldwide reputation, he seems immersed 
  in his work, and his physical appearance 
  belies any great activity on his part. 
  But as part of Doc Savage's little group 
  of scrappers, he's a man entirely different. 
  His 
  gaunt 
  frame 
  can 
  go 
  without 
  nourishment for days, at the same time 
  sending forth energy and strength that are 
  almost unbelievable. Even those glasses, 
  which serve to make him more puny--
  looking, are useful, for one lens, covering 
  an eye, is a high-powered magnifying 
  glass. 
  Throw in your lot with Doc Savage and 
  his pals. Thrill to their adventures in this 
  exciting yarn. 
   
  “And Renny, too,” grumbled Long 
  Tom. 
  “Johnny,” 
  really 
  William 
  Harper 
  Littlejohn, another of Doc’s aides, had few 
  peers as a geologist. “Renny,” big, two-fisted 
  Colonel John Renwick, was the engineer of 
  Doc’s group. But Renny and Johnny were far 
  away, in distant China, working on a 
  commercial enterprise of vast importance. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  53 
  It had occurred to Ham that Johnny, 
  if he were along, might be able to solve the 
  secret of what was so valuable in this 
  unsettled region. And Long Tom believed 
  Renny’s vast fighting ability might be of great 
  aid. 
   
   
      When it comes to a big fellow with brains 
  to 
  match, 
  ”Renny”—Colonel 
  John 
  Renwick—fills the bill. His vocation is 
  engineering, and he has done such a good 
  job of it that his services are much in 
  demand, even to naming his own price.  
      As a member of Doc Savage’s little 
  group, Renny’s strength and knowledge 
  have proved valuable. In a fight he is a 
  raging tornado, using his enormous fists to 
  deliver bone-cracking blows. 
      For fun, Renny smashes the wooden 
  panels on doors. His boast is that there is 
  no wooden panel built he cannot break. 
   
  Ham, with his interrogating legal 
  mind, kept trying to figure what goal could be 
  behind the forces that were dealing death. 
  The answer eluded him. He expected they 
  would find out eventually, however. 
  It was to be unpleasantly sooner 
  than he anticipated. 
  “I’ve lost the trail,” Ham cried 
  suddenly. The trail had run onto a stratum of 
  rock. The burrow didn’t leave hoofprints in 
  that. 
  Long Tom exploded with an exultant 
  shout. 
  “Doc got away from them somehow!” 
  he bellowed. “I’ve picked up Doc’s tracks!” 
  Footprints from Doc Savage’s shoes 
  glowed under the fluoroscopic lenses. Long 
  Tom and Ham quickened their pace. Long 
  Tom took the lead. The aides knew that if 
  Doc were free again, they could expect 
  action that would be favorable. 
  “We’re gettin’ closer,” Long Tom 
  exulted. “Doc seems to be takin’ his time. 
  The prints are getting fresher.” 
  The trail went through a rocky gorge. 
  It 
  was 
  narrow, 
  and 
  footholds 
  were 
  treacherous. Halfway through the gorge, the 
  aides heard a harsh laugh from above them. 
  Ham looked up. 
  “Run!” he yelled. “It’s an avalanche!” 
   
   
  IT wasn’t an avalanche. But it was 
  about as effective. Huge boulders bounded 
  down the side of the gorge. Ham didn’t see 
  who had laughed up there. He just saw tons 
  of rocks descending. Fast sprinting got them 
  out from under the rocks and earth that 
  crashed down. But the trail behind them was 
  completely blocked. 
  “There’s only one way to go now,” 
  Ham observed. 
  “Doc’s ahead, anyway,” Long Tom 
  pointed out. “That’s the way we want to go.” 
  Long Tom’s reasoning was sound. 
  But the results were not quite what he 
  expected them to be. He turned a sharp 
  corner in the gorge. With the glasses on, he 
  couldn’t see anything except the fluorescent 
  footprints of Doc’s shoes. But Ham saw 
  several other things. 
  The first thing he noticed were Doc’s 
  shoes. The bronze man wasn’t in them! But a 
  grinning thug was! 
  Ham plunged forward, whipped out 
  his sword cane. The grinning thug in Doc’s 
  shoes went to sleep when the anaesthetic-
  tipped point of the sword touched his neck. 
  That didn’t do Ham any good. A 
  dozen hands seized him. Another dozen 
  grabbed for Long Tom. 
  Ham darted his cane in and out. 
  Then he dropped it and showed he could do 
  equally well with his fists. Long Tom was 
  giving a swell exhibition of how an unhealthy-
  looking man is not supposed to act. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  54 
  Four men twice his size went down 
  with amazed looks on their faces. But 
  superior numbers finally smothered him. 
  Ham was smacked from behind with a club. 
  Chemistry blundered into a wire noose 
  before he had a chance to get going. 
  Habeas, squealing and biting, was seized in 
  a blanket. 
   
   
  LONG TOM and Ham were tightly 
  bound. 
  “Look at that,” Ham groaned. “They 
  fooled us with Doc’s own shoes.” 
  Bronze hair showed faintly from one 
  end of the blanket roll on the burro’s back. 
  Well-shaped, bare feet protruded from the 
  other side. Barge Deeter stood there, 
  grinning. 
  “Is—is he dead?” Ham could not help 
  asking. 
  Deeter grinned wider. It was not a 
  pleasant grin. 
  “He died too easy,” he gloated. “I 
  thought he was tough. And you guys are just 
  dumb.” 
  Barge Deeter’s chest seemed to 
  swell. Probably he had never been quite as 
  proud of himself as he was right then. 
  “We heard of them trick shoes of 
  his,” he sneered. “We knew we could grab 
  you if you followed. So now we got what’s left 
  of your gang.” 
  Ham winced at “what is left of your 
  gang.” The Monster had gotten Monk. The 
  gang had killed Doc. Ham shuddered. He 
  didn’t care much what happened to himself 
  now. 
  Barbara Hughes was dragged into 
  view. Her face was tear-stained. “I—I’m 
  sorry,” she said, as she saw Ham’s stricken 
  features. “I—I tried to warn Doc, but he came 
  to my aid.” 
  Ham nodded. The lawyer did not ask 
  needless questions. He had never suspected 
  the girl. Only Monk had been wrong about 
  her. But then, Monk always was wrong about 
  girls. 
  Barge Deeter took peculiar-looking 
  chains and collars from a saddlebag on the 
  burro. He put the collars on Long Tom, Ham 
  and Chemistry. The collars were chained 
  together. They were shoved along, single file, 
  like African slaves being herded through a 
  Congo jungle. 
  Habeas was chained to Ham’s ankle. 
  Ordinarily, that would have annoyed the 
  dapper lawyer. But right now, he even felt 
  sympathy for the pig. 
  Barge led the way. They went down 
  a steep trail. The trail turned. And involuntary 
  gasps came from Long Tom and Ham. 
  They were at the entrance to a huge 
  canyon. Big trees screened the top. A 
  protruding lip of a huge cliff extended far out 
  over much of the canyon, making it invisible 
  from above. 
  And under that cliff was a veritable 
  city. The forest of spruce and pines on the 
  other side hid it from almost any angle. 
   
   
  IT was more than a city. It was a 
  Baghdad in Alaska. Oriental signs floated in 
  the breeze. There were bazaars on the edge 
  of the hard-packed earthen street. Men of all 
  nationalities, all colors, moved about the 
  place. 
  They seemed to have only one thing 
  in common: The stamp of criminality was 
  written on every face. 
  Here, deep in the Alaskan wilds, but 
  comparatively only a few miles from Arcadia 
  Valley, was a gathering, a massing of 
  criminals such as none of the colonists had 
  imagined. 
  Ham’s mind clicked suddenly. No 
  word of this vast city had ever seeped out. It 
  seemingly had been a secret also, even from 
  the Indians. That could mean only one thing: 
  This must be the home of The 
  Monster! 
  Some parts of the legend of The 
  Monster had been vague. On one thing 
  particularly no one had been able to gain 
  information from the Indians. That was as to 
  where its den was supposed to be. 
  The Indians had indicated merely 
  that it was taboo, sacred ground. Much as 
  Yellowstone Park once was shunned by the 
  Indians of the United States, who believed it 
  the home of the gods because of the 
  geysers, so this valley had been shunned by 
  the Alaskan tribe. 
  They had not reported the vast 
  concentration of men here because they had 
  not known it. None had dared visit this valley. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  55 
  But the crooks had. They had moved in, had 
  taken possession. 
  Which must mean they had been 
  using The Monster for their own means. 
  Ham’s thoughts broke off. They were 
  being pulled on down into the valley, the 
  vast, almost hidden canyon. 
   
   
  THE canyon was a seething caldron 
  of activity. Two huge, amphibian transport 
  planes soared inside, glided down to some 
  hidden landing field. Several small, speedy 
  scout planes slipped in after them. Long Tom 
  understood, then, that it was from this spot 
  the planes had come that had attacked them 
  en route to Arcadia. 
  There was an excited babble in 
  many foreign tongues as the inhabitants of 
  the valley gestured toward the plane. Dark-
  skinned 
  Hindus, 
  almond-eyed 
  Chinese 
  pointed upward. Ham caught some of the 
  lingo. 
  “Soon our turn. Soon we go, too,” 
  some of them said. 
  Others were not concerned. Or 
  perhaps it was not their turn to go. Where 
  they expected to go, or what they intended to 
  do, none said. 
  Men were gambling with all manner 
  of devices. There were card games, dice 
  games, bird cage, roulette, faro, three-card 
  monte. 
  Long Tom noticed that the gamblers 
  were not using money. They were using 
  gems, jewels of fabulous price. One shabby-
  looking man hurled a diamond tiara on the 
  ground in the dice game. Ham gasped. 
  “The Preston tiara!” he exclaimed. “It 
  was stolen last month!” 
  Long Tom and Ham looked more 
  closely at the gems piled up beside the 
  gamblers. Doc’s aides kept track of important 
  thefts. Their knowledge of them frequently 
  came in handy. They recognized gems stolen 
  all over the United States within the last few 
  months. 
  “It’s 
  all 
  stolen 
  property!” 
  Ham 
  gasped. “This must be a tremendous 
  international clearing house of crime.” 
  “It’s more than that,” Long Tom 
  muttered. He pointed to huge piles of 
  merchandise, and big stacks of boxes lining 
  the far wall of the canyon. Munitions, war 
  material of all kinds, was stored there. 
  It was hard to grasp at first the full 
  import of that, to realize what a huge scope 
  of activities must be directed from this hidden 
  city. 
  Men stepped away hastily from in 
  front of Barge Deeter as the procession 
  moved along. All showed the big-shoed man 
  the greatest respect. But it was clear that 
  even he was not the brain behind all this. 
  Occasionally, Ham or Long Tom could catch 
  the gist of some low-toned remarks. 
  Always it was some message to 
  pass along to “the boss.” 
  The procession moved over to one 
  side of the cliff. The sky came in view above 
  them, a perfect opening directly through the 
  roof of the cliff. Halfway up the cliff, caves 
  had been constructed. But there was one 
  huge cave, well off by itself. 
  No men were near that cave. A faint, 
  foul, sickly sweet odor came from it. 
  Ham’s face changed color. Long 
  Tom started, while Habeas pulled back hard 
  on the chain that bound him to Ham, trying to 
  run away. 
  Barge 
  Deeter 
  looked 
  over 
  one 
  shoulder, his teeth showing in a wicked grin. 
  “Yeah, you’re right. It’s here,” he 
  said. “You’ll see it soon enough.” 
  Involuntarily, 
  Long 
  Tom’s 
  eyes 
  drifted to the still form sprawled over the 
  burro, rested for a moment on the bronze 
  hair almost trailing in the dust. 
  It wasn’t hard to interpret what Barge 
  Deeter meant. 
  They were prodded up a narrow 
  footpath. The going was difficult. Some of the 
  guards came to their aid. Hampered as they 
  were by chains, they were stumbling. 
  Barge Deeter stopped suddenly, 
  listening. It seemed to him there had been a 
  faint change in the murmur of voices among 
  the thousands behind him. 
  Then he shrugged. His imagination 
  must be playing him tricks. 
  The body wrapped in the blanket 
  was taken from the burro, was tossed into 
  one corner of a dark cave. Ham, Long Tom, 
  Barbara Hughes and the animals, also, were 
  taken into the cave. They were bound tightly. 
  “Just take it easy, boys,” Barge 
  Deeter smirked. “You won’t be here long. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  56 
  The show will start as soon as I can inform 
  the boss you’re here.” 
  Again there was a change in the 
  murmur of voices in the valley below the 
  cave. Barge’s features screwed up in a 
  frown. Something funny there. He’d look into 
  it as soon as he conferred with the boss. 
  But it couldn’t be anything serious. 
  Of that Barge Deeter was sure. 
   
   
  Chapter XVII 
  REBELLION 
   
  BARGE DEETER might not have 
  been so positive in his belief had he known 
  just exactly what was going on among the 
  packed throngs of criminals. 
  The buzz of comment Barge had 
  noticed seemed to center about a huge, 
  cruel-appearing Oriental. The man was fat, 
  with long-hanging jowls, and eyes that were 
  narrow slits. He was clad in the most 
  expensive of silks, and the strangely shaped 
  cap he wore apparently indicated he was a 
  man of rank. 
  Those 
  of 
  his 
  countrymen 
  he 
  addressed listened with careful attention. 
  His words were low, but they carried 
  conviction. His listeners nodded their heads 
  with increasing emphasis as he spoke. 
  Several in the crowd around him drew cruel-
  shaped knives, rubbed the sides of the 
  blades reflectively on their palms. 
  The big Oriental spoke sharply in 
  singsong 
  Cantonese. 
  The 
  knives 
  disappeared. 
  Then 
  he 
  went 
  on, 
  approached 
  another group. For a time, all those he talked 
  to were Orientals like himself. And from those 
  he addressed, other speakers appeared. 
  They also circulated, talked swiftly. 
  The change of tone in the near 
  underground city was startling. The gay, 
  cheerful conversation ceased. A low, sullen 
  murmur took its place. 
  Europeans and Americans looked up 
  in wonder. Then they, too, gathered about 
  the big Oriental. The Oriental switched to 
  English that had little accent. He apparently 
  was well-educated. Even the toughest of the 
  European crooks listened to him with 
  respect. 
  “Long time we be here, no?” the 
  Oriental said. “We have paid, most of us, 
  huge sums. We were promised certain 
  things. But have those things been carried 
  out? No!” 
  There was a murmur of approval. 
  “Instead of being taken on to our 
  destination, as we were promised,” the 
  Oriental went on, “we remain here. Not only 
  that, but we see hundreds of others brought 
  here, while few leave. And we do not know 
  that even those who leave reach their 
  destination. There are rumors that many of 
  our brothers who have left have been killed 
  on the way and their bodies disposed of.” 
  The murmur of approval grew louder. 
  A 
  hard-faced 
  gunman 
  stepped 
  forward. “So what?” he snapped. “The boss 
  had to slow up for a while. He couldn’t keep 
  up the game until Doc Savage had been put 
  out of the way. What did you want him to 
  do?” 
  “We of the East have a saying,” the 
  Oriental replied indirectly. “‘If a man giveth 
  his word, then not keep it, it is well to take it 
  away from him.’” 
  “Meaning 
  what?” 
  snapped 
  the 
  gunman. 
  “All we have received are excuses,” 
  the Oriental evaded. “First, it was the 
  colonists. We must remain quiet until they 
  leave. Then it is this Doc Savage. We must 
  wait until he is dead. We do not even know if 
  that is true, yet.” 
  The gunman chuckled harshly. “The 
  hell we don’t. The boss has got that bronze 
  devil now. We just saw his body brought in.” 
  “Then we may hear another excuse.” 
  The Oriental bowed. “Did you happen to 
  think, wise one, that the boss has us, also? 
  Word was brought me that the last possible 
  exit by foot from this place has been blocked. 
  Only the birds that fly by air can leave. If the 
  boss wished to depart, taking all our gold, 
  where would we be?” 
  Eyes 
  grew 
  wider, 
  as 
  the 
  full 
  significance of that soaked in. Treacherous 
  themselves, the men could readily imagine 
  treachery on the part of others. Argument 
  ceased. The sullen murmur increased. 
  “But what of The Monster?” growled 
  the gunman. 
  The Oriental bowed deeper. “Does it 
  not occur to you, wise one,” he said softly, 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  57 
  “that perhaps we are to be left here to feed 
  The Monster?” 
  The murmur of the crowd changed to 
  one of fear. Eyes flickered uneasily to that 
  big cave in the cliff. The picture was 
  becoming plain, too plain. 
  “It was promised the heart of a 
  bronze-haired man,” the gunman objected. 
  “And has not received it,” the 
  Oriental said. “I do not think it will ever 
  receive it. We are the ones who are to feed 
  it.” 
  Fear frankly seized the ranks of his 
  listeners, a terrible kind of fear. They could 
  see their fate ahead of them. 
  “What’ll we do?” roared several at 
  once. “You must have a plan, or you wouldn’t 
  be talking.” 
  “I have,” the big Oriental said softly. 
  “Get weapons ready. Walt until I give the 
  word. Then act. I know how to deal with The 
  Monster.” 
  A roar like that of caged animals 
  swept the canyon. 
   
   
  BARGE DEETER heard that roar just 
  as he entered a big cave. The place was a 
  cave only in the sense that it had been 
  carved out of the cliff. Otherwise, it was the 
  latest word in luxury. There were expensive 
  rugs on the floor, fine tapestries on the walls. 
  The furniture was the best that money could 
  obtain. 
  From an inner room came the sharp 
  snap of wireless sets. It was to this room 
  Barge Deeter rushed. 
  The room would have done credit to 
  a broker’s office on a busy day. There were 
  half a score of sending and receiving sets 
  about the room. Men were at each of these. 
  Orders were being dispatched and reports 
  received. 
  From 
  here 
  was 
  controlled 
  the 
  network of probably the greatest criminal 
  organization the world had ever known. The 
  radio sets were in communication with 
  hidden stations in half a dozen countries. 
  Criminal jobs were planned and directed from 
  this room. 
  But more than just crime was 
  directed here. 
  The hidden canyon was ideally 
  located from a criminal point of view. It lay 
  midway between the Far East and the United 
  States. 
  Many political fugitives, fleeing spies, 
  anarchists and plotters of all kinds had fled 
  here for refuge, refuge that had been given 
  them on payment of much gold. World 
  rebellions were plotted here; arms and 
  ammunition were smuggled out of the United 
  States to this depot, then transshipped to the 
  Far East, where they would be used by wild-
  eyed bands of fanatics. 
  The room was like the apex of a 
  giant spider’s web; the radio waves were the 
  strands of that web which stretched over half 
  the world. Crime, dope-smuggling, arms-
  running, world revolutions, making and 
  breaking of empires—all were part of the 
  food upon which the spider fed. 
  And the big man in the center of the 
  room looked as cruel as such a spider might 
  be expected to look. 
  His eyes were thin slits behind a 
  black mask. His head shot up as Barge 
  Deeter rushed to him breathlessly. 
   
   
   
  “Something is wrong!” the man with 
  the big feet panted. 
  “You have Doc Savage?” the other 
  asked calmly. 
  “Yes, but—” 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  58 
  “Then nothing is wrong,” the masked 
  man said with decision. “I know the little ones 
  in the valley become impatient. But that will 
  be over. Come, we will put on a little show for 
  our playmates.” 
  He rose, led the way from the cave. 
   
   
  HAM and Long Tom also heard the 
  sullen murmur in the valley. They did not 
  know what caused it, but they were sure it 
  boded no good for them. 
  Long Tom’s shoulders hunched. He 
  could not keep his eyes from that blanket-
  clad figure, lying so still, in the far end of the 
  cave. 
  Doc Savage was dead. The bronze 
  man had come to the end of his trail at last in 
  this out-of-the-way Alaskan wilderness. His 
  bronze hair hung from one end of that 
  blanket. 
  For a time, the electrician had 
  watched that form hopefully. He had seen 
  Doc Savage pull too many miraculous 
  escapes to give up easily. At any moment he 
  had expected Doc to come free, aid them to 
  escape. 
  But that still form had not moved. 
  Tears were in Long Tom’s eyes, although he 
  tried not to show them. 
  The evidence was too strong, and 
  Barbara Hughes had insisted that she had 
  seen Doc killed in the forest clearing. He had 
  died even as John Alden had died. 
  Barbara Hughes had told her story. 
  Coupled 
  with 
  what 
  they 
  had 
  seen 
  themselves, Ham and Long Tom had a clear 
  picture of the set-up. They could understand 
  why they had been attacked in Chicago, why 
  such strong efforts had been made to keep 
  them from Arcadia. 
  But they were helpless. The fiendish 
  cunning of their foe for once had been too 
  great. Doc was dead. Monk was dead. And 
  the vast criminal set-up would run on 
  unhindered. A worthwhile project, the Arcadia 
  Valley settlement, had been ended. Colonists 
  had been run out. 
  All that, they had to charge against 
  the chief criminal, the brains behind this 
  hidden city. 
  Who that criminal was, how he 
  controlled The Monster, they did not know. 
  Had they been free, Long Tom and 
  Ham would have tried to go on, would have 
  fought and plotted to the last in an effort to 
  wipe out this terrible plague-spot that 
  menaced the world. 
  But Doc was gone. And they were 
  captives. 
  Ham was watching Habeas and 
  Chemistry. The lawyer’s eyes were puzzled. 
  Chemistry and Habeas both had 
  always thought much of Doc. He had been 
  their favorite, even though they had been 
  pets of Monk and Ham. 
  Even in death, Ham had not thought 
  Habeas would shun the bronze man. But the 
  pig did. He cowered back as far as his chain 
  would permit, just as far away from that still 
  body as he could get. 
  Chemistry showed no fear. But 
  neither did he show interest. He seemed far 
  more concerned with the iron collar about his 
  neck. 
  A strange thought stirred through 
  Ham’s mind. 
   
   
  IT was at that moment that the sullen 
  murmur below changed in tone. 
  Yells rang out. Somewhere a gun 
  barked. That seemed to be a signal. In a 
  moment there was the sound of fierce 
  fighting. 
  Two men ran into the darkened cave. 
  One of them was Barge Deeter. The other 
  wore a black mask. 
  The man with the mask held a knife 
  in his hand. “We’ll take him to The Monster at 
  once!” the masked man rasped. “That will 
  quiet those fools.” 
  “Be careful!” Deeter shrieked. “Even 
  if he is dead, take no chances!” 
  “I intend to take none!” the other 
  snapped. The knife in his hand lifted. Time 
  after time, it came down in a very fury of 
  motion. It was streaked with crimson from the 
  blanket-wrapped man’s body. 
  Long Tom moaned and hid his eyes. 
  The next second he opened them. 
  Ham had given a loud yell of jubilation. 
  The masked man had cut the blanket 
  off the body it contained, had yanked that 
  body toward the mouth of the cave. Light 
  struck it fairly. Ham understood now why 
  Chemistry had shown no interest. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  59 
   
  A big, fat oriental glided into the room as the masked 
  man pursued the other. He had cruel, thin eyes, and 
  long-hanging jowls. 
   
  The body had bronze hair. But it was 
  not that of Doc Savage! 
  An oath ripped from Barge Deeter. 
  The masked man was terrible in his wrath. 
  He rushed at Deeter, seemed for a moment 
  about to use the crimson-stained knife on the 
  man with the big feet. 
  Deeter screamed, ran frantically. 
  “Fool!” howled the masked man. He 
  leaped in pursuit. 
   
   
  A BIG, fat Oriental, dressed in 
  expensive silken robes, wearing a cap that 
  denoted high rank, glided into the room. The 
  man had cruel, thin eyes, and long-hanging 
  jowls. 
  “Ham? Long Tom?” he asked softly. 
   
   
  “Doc!” yelled Ham. 
  “We’re 
  safe,” 
  breathed 
  Barbara 
  Hughes. 
  “And we’re going to lick ‘em yet!” 
  Long Tom bubbled. 
  The big Oriental moved forward; 
  swiftly he worked at the iron collar about the 
  lawyer’s neck. 
  Doc’s reappearance was not as 
  supernatural as it seemed. In fact, there was 
  nothing miraculous about it. 
  The bronze man long before had 
  solved the method by which John Alden had 
  been killed, and had perfected a way to balk 
  it. 
  Doc had examined John Alden’s 
  body in Chicago much more closely than any 
  of his distinguished medical associates. His 
  keen eyes had detected the tiny, almost 
  invisible puncture in John Alden’s throat. 
  The method of death had been plain. 
  A tiny dart had been shot into that throat. At 
  the same time, an odor had been released 
  that resembled that of The Monster. The dart 
  had been dipped in quick-acting poison. It 
  had paralyzed the vocal cords first, producing 
  symptoms similar to those effected by The 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  60 
  Monster’s odor. Then the poison had brought 
  death. 
  A dart had struck Doc’s throat, fired 
  from the Oriental weapon held in Barge 
  Deeter’s hand. But a thin, flesh-colored 
  wrapping had been about Doc’s throat. The 
  wrapping could have stopped a bullet. The 
  dart had glanced off harmlessly. Doc had 
  permitted himself to be taken prisoner to 
  learn the route to the hideout. 
  Escaping had been no great feat. 
  Barge and his men had stopped to rest 
  several times en route up the mountains, 
  leaving only one man to guard the burro and 
  its burden. Doc had merely traded places 
  with the guard; a chemical had changed the 
  guard’s hair to a bronze color. The guard had 
  been unconscious, but alive, until the 
  masked man had killed him. 
  When the city came into view, Doc 
  had slipped ahead, changed his disguise. 
  This the bronze man explained 
  swiftly. The iron collar came free from Ham’s 
  neck. 
  Doc turned toward Long Tom. 
  “Hold 
  it, 
  Doc 
  Savage! 
  You’re 
  trapped!” 
  The bronze man whirled. His low 
  trilling sound came, filled the cave, tuneless 
  but 
  penetrating. 
  Ham 
  and 
  Long 
  Tom 
  moaned. 
  Barbara 
  Hughes 
  slumped 
  in 
  resignation. 
  A tall, black-masked man stood in 
  the doorway. Behind him was Barge Deeter. 
  Each held two Mills bombs in their hands. 
  “This room is equipped with a 
  dictograph,” the masked man said silkily. “I 
  heard all you said here. Try to move, and we 
  will throw these bombs. I assure you that you 
  cannot escape.” 
   
   
  Chapter XVIII 
  BACK FROM THE DEAD 
   
  DOC SAVAGE stood tense, muscles 
  coiled, ready for instant action. 
  “Take him, Doc,” pleaded Long Tom. 
  The 
  electrician’s 
  features 
  looked 
  more 
  unhealthy than ever before. In an instant his 
  hopes had been smashed. The chance of 
  conquering The Monster, of wiping out this 
  hell-hole had gone. 
  The bronze man did not move. He 
  could probably have reached his opponent. 
  But that would do no good if those bombs 
  were hurled. Doc would escape. Ham could 
  probably get away. 
  But Long Tom was still a captive. 
  The girl was tied. So were Chemistry and 
  Habeas. Some, inevitably, would be killed. 
  Outside, the roar of battle grew 
  louder. 
  “What do you wish me to do?” Doc 
  said calmly. 
  “Just walk right out,” the masked 
  man gritted. “Keep your arms high over your 
  head.” 
  A dozen men poured on Doc when 
  he reached the door of the cave, tied him 
  securely. He made no resistance. 
  The masked man seemed to know 
  just what he wanted to do. While others 
  again tied Ham, and brought him along with 
  Long Tom and Barbara Hughes, the man 
  with the black mask led the way at a rapid 
  pace toward a level spot on the cliff. 
   
   
  BELOW were seething thousands. 
  Some had already started to storm the cliff. 
  Men with submachine guns were on 
  top of the cliff, were raining lead into the 
  massed throngs beneath them. 
  The slaughter was terrific. 
  But Orientals were in the vanguard of 
  the attack. They were the ones Doc had first 
  talked with in his disguise as a Mandarin. His 
  words had carried weight. 
  Orientals are fatalists. They do not 
  fear death, they came on, despite the terrible 
  havoc wreaked in their ranks. By pure weight 
  of numbers, it was apparent that sooner or 
  later they would reach the top of the cliff. 
  The masked man could picture what 
  would happen then. His face quivered 
  beneath the black cloth. 
  He caught Doc Savage, thrust him 
  before him like a shield, pulled him to the 
  edge of the cliff. A small microphone was 
  thrust into his fist by Barge Deeter. 
  “Halt!” he roared. His voice was 
  magnified a thousand times, echoed through 
  the canyon. The very unexpectedness of it 
  caused fighters to ease trigger fingers. 
  Silence fell. Eyes turned upward. 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  61 
  There they saw, apparently, a big, fat 
  Oriental, the one who had stirred them into 
  revolt. 
  “I have Doc Savage!” the voice 
  roared on. “He was the one who misled you! 
  Now he is to die! Look!” 
  Gunmen reached forward, tore the 
  Oriental disguise from Doc. He stood forth, 
  his magnificent bronze frame upright, his 
  features calm. 
  Startled exclamations came from the 
  packed ranks beneath. There was a sigh, 
  almost of awe. Every one in those ranks had 
  heard of Doc Savage, feared him. None, 
  really, could picture the bronze man being a 
  prisoner, even though Barge Deeter had said 
  he had been captured. 
  But there he was. Plainly a captive. 
  And he was in the hands of the boss. That 
  meant he would be fed to The Monster. The 
  threat the fake Oriental had warned about 
  lost its force. All knew that when The Monster 
  fed on the heart of a bronze-haired man, it 
  would no longer terrorize any one. 
  Cheers rang from the thousands 
  below 
  where 
  oaths 
  and 
  bullets 
  had 
  resounded only seconds before. 
  Tension relaxed in the masked 
  man’s frame. He had gambled, and he had 
  won. Confidently he stepped forward, lifted 
  the microphone again. His voice rolled forth. 
  “I do not know what lies you were 
  told to cause you to revolt, but you can see 
  your fears were needless!” he bellowed. 
  “The peril we faced—the peril of the 
  bronze devil—is past. In just a few moments 
  you will have the pleasure of seeing him die.” 
  He paused dramatically. “You will 
  have the pleasure of watching him being fed 
  to The Monster!” 
  A tremendous burst of sound came 
  from the throats of the packed thousands. It 
  was the sound of a giant wolf pack, scenting 
  a kill. It was a roar to chill the blood. 
  Ham and Long Tom looked uneasy. 
  Doc’s expression did not change. He seemed 
  aloof, unworried. 
   
   
  NOT many miles away, the last of 
  the Arcadia Valley colonists were pulling out 
  from the place they had once called home. 
  They left sorrowfully, even though fear 
  tugged at their hearts. 
  Here they had found peace—for a 
  little time—until the terror came. Hope had 
  risen again with the arrival of Doc Savage. 
  That hope had died, too. 
  Only a twisted mass of metal 
  remained of the bronze man’s plane. The 
  bronze man himself and his aides had 
  vanished as utterly as if The Monster had 
  swallowed all of them. 
  Herb Dwight’s eyes were misty and 
  he turned for one last look at the home where 
  he had expected to spend his declining years 
  in peace and happiness. He gulped, pressed 
  his wife’s hand tightly. 
  The Arcadia Valley project had been 
  a worthy one. Now it was all over. It had 
  been crushed by man’s greed. 
  But Herb Dwight did not know that. 
  He did not know of the events occurring in 
  the hidden valley. He only knew that hope 
  was gone. 
  In the cities, men were shaking their 
  heads as they read of the latest appearance 
  of The Monster. An element of doubt had 
  crept into the stories now. It seemed that 
  someone—no one appeared to know just 
  who—had given out a story that The Monster 
  was just an invention of the colonists. 
  According to this story, the colonists 
  really hadn’t liked the project, had been 
  hunting for excuses to get out. They had 
  concocted a weird tale, and even had 
  convinced the press of it for days. Actually, 
  the mysterious authority went on, the 
  colonists 
  were 
  ungrateful 
  for 
  all 
  the 
  government had done for them. 
  The man with the black mask might 
  have explained that report if he had wished. 
  He had issued orders to a big battery of 
  press agents to see that it was circulated. 
  Not content with depriving the colonists of 
  their homes, he wished to make them appear 
  ungrateful as well. 
  But there was a reason for that. With 
  Doc Savage in his hands and the colonists 
  gone, he wanted the story of The Monster to 
  disappear from the press. He wanted no 
  more investigation. 
  “Just a bunch of bums,” men were 
  sneering to their neighbors as they heard the 
  colonists were leaving their homes for no 
  reason at all. “Here they had a chance to live 
  better than we do, and they run off.” 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  62 
  The fleeing colonists didn’t know 
  that, either. But some of them knew there 
  was such a beast. They had seen it. 
   
   
  THE men in the hidden valley knew 
  there was a Monster, also. They had seen it 
  slip from its lair, huge and loathsome, while 
  storms raged. They had smelled its horrible 
  odor, had seen remains of its victims. 
  “We have won!” the masked man 
  was shrilling happily. “Planes will soon speed 
  out of here again.” He had an attentive 
  audience and was making the most of it. 
  “Those of you who paid to be taken to the 
  United States will be taken there. Arms and 
  guns that we have been forced to keep here, 
  will be sent on to their destination. The 
  uprising in Asia can come off as planned.” He 
  paused, shouted loudly. 
  “And all because of The Monster!” 
  “Who in reality is no monster at all!” 
  The masked man jumped as if a 
  sword had been thrust into him. The last 
  words had thundered out of the microphone, 
  had crashed into the valley through the loud-
  speaker. They had come in his voice. 
  But he had not spoken them! 
  Doc Savage stood silent. But Ham 
  and Long Tom gulped suddenly. The bronze 
  man’s ventriloquism was at work again. 
  “I have fooled you with my fake 
  monster, even as I fooled the colonists of 
  Arcadia Valley,” the voice went on. The 
  masked man’s face was purple under the 
  black cloth. 
  “I trick every one, even my friends. I 
  have told you no one could escape The 
  Monster. That is not so.” 
  The masked man whirled. He had 
  fathomed the secret of the strange voice. He 
  also knew that Doc was one of the world’s 
  greatest when it came to imitating and 
  throwing voices. 
  “Fools!” he shrieked. “It is the bronze 
  man speaking, not I! And I shall show you he 
  lies!” 
  A puzzled murmuring came from 
  beneath. Some of those in the crowd below 
  were remembering things that made it seem 
  Doc Savage might have spoken the truth. 
  “No one can escape The Monster!” 
  the masked man howled. “And I plan no 
  tricks. You are my friends; I would not fool 
  you!” 
  “He would fool every one, if he 
  could!” the loudspeakers echoed. 
  Men grabbed Doc and his aides, 
  forced them up the path that led toward the 
  big den—the den where The Monster lived. 
  And then a strange thing occurred. 
  A figure raced from that den. It was a 
  hairy figure, with long arms that reached 
  almost to the ground as it sped along with a 
  queer, shuffling gait. Tiny eyes, almost 
  hidden in pits of gristle, gleamed redly. 
  It was Monk! 
  “I’ve solved it!” the hairy chemist 
  shouted. “I’ve solved it!” 
  Then all hell broke loose. 
   
   
  Chapter XIX 
  THE MONSTER DINES 
   
  THE masked man was really to 
  blame. The crowd below surged forward at 
  the unexpected appearance of Monk. The 
  masked man lost his head. He thought the 
  packed 
  thousands 
  were 
  attacking. 
  He 
  shouted an order. 
  Gunmen lining the cliff turned loose 
  with submachine guns. 
  Nothing could have prevented the 
  terrible massacre after that. Doc’s words 
  were still ringing in the ears of the crooks. 
  The firing of the machine guns bore out those 
  words. 
  A horrible, screeching wail burst from 
  their throats. 
  They rushed forward. 
  The masked man saw that he had 
  lost. Barge Deeter was already running as 
  fast as he could. The masked man whirled, 
  pulled out a gun, looked for Doc. 
  The bronze man was no longer 
  there. 
  With the speed of light the bronze 
  man’s hands had come free. He loosed Ham 
  in almost the same instant, pushed tools into 
  Ham’s fists. The dapper lawyer understood. 
  As Doc ripped free the bonds that 
  had held Barbara Hughes, Ham attacked the 
  iron collar about Long Tom’s neck. 
  Monk rushed up, his homely face 
  alight. Ham scarcely glanced at him. Far be it 
  from him to let Monk know how much he had 
  
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE MOUNTAIN MONSTER xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   
  63 
  worried when he had thought the chemist 
  dead. 
  Doc dived back up the path, up 
  toward the den where The Monster lived. 
  The masked man did not see him. 
  He howled with rage, rushed into a small 
  cave. He pulled a lever there. 
  A horrible, foul, sickly sweet odor 
  flooded the canyon suddenly. 
  Shrieks and screams came from the 
  charging thousands. For a moment they 
  paused. Their voices stopped, as the deadly 
  effect of that odor went to work, paralyzing 
  their vocal cords. 
  Then the second effect of the odor 
  was apparent. It exerted its peculiar, hypnotic 
  spell. It attracted its victims, made them 
  come right toward it. 
  A sob came from the masked man. 
  He had forgotten that, had thought only of 
  stopping the mob. 
   
   
  DOC caught a whiff of the peculiar 
  scent. His hands darted to the belt about his 
  waist, yanked out several small cylinders. A 
  hissing sound came. Gas poured from the 
  miniature tanks in Doc’s hands. Others of his 
  group, who had temporarily been under the 
  spell of the sweet odor, snapped back to life. 
  They raced after him. 
  Doc had long ago solved the secret 
  of The Monster’s odor, had prepared an 
  antidote. That antidote neutralized the queer 
  effects of The Monster’s smell. 
  A terrible, frantic scream came from 
  behind them. 
  Ham looked over one shoulder; his 
  face blanched. 
  The mob had reached the top of the 
  cliff, had reached the masked man. 
  Even as Ham looked, the mask was 
  torn from the man’s face, his clothing was 
  ripped from his body. In less than seconds 
  the man was literally torn apart by the fear-
  maddened throng. 
  Ham gulped. He had recognized that 
  man. He had known him. 
  Doc 
  was 
  running 
  ahead, 
  sure-
  footedly, and as if he knew exactly where he 
  was going. Long Tom, Monk and Barbara 
  Hughes wondered at that, but did not 
  question. They followed him as fast as they 
  could. Chemistry had picked up Habeas 
  Corpus, was carrying the pig so he could 
  make better time. 
  Then Doc stopped. He was almost to 
  the open den of The Monster. And he was 
  directly under the peculiar open space there 
  that led up to the sky, the open space The 
  Monster used when it made its raids. 
   
   
  AN incredulous gasp came from the 
  girl. Doc was going straight up into the air! 
  The bronze man seemed to be 
  floating upward at first. Then the girl saw that 
  his arms and legs were moving. As she came 
  closer, she understood why. 
  Doc was climbing a cable. That cable 
  had been so painted that it was practically 
  invisible. It led high up into the air. 
  Even Long Tom and Ham showed 
  surprise when they saw what was there. 
  A small dirigible floated gently in the 
  sky. 
  Monk grinned, started to speak, but 
  there was no time. Men, peering from the 
  dirigible, watching the fight below, had 
  spotted Doc. The bronze man might need 
  help. The hairy chemist went up the cable as 
  easily as did Chemistry immediately behind 
  him. 
  Doc needed no help. While a still-
  startled crew was wondering if it was seeing 
  things, the bronze man landed among them. 
  Time was short. The howling mob would 
  reach the others on the ground in the space 
  of seconds. 
  So Doc wasted no time. His long 
  arms floated out, his iron-cabled fists 
  smashed into jaws. A gun was pulled from 
  one killer’s hand; the killer himself almost 
  went off the dirigible in trying to catch his 
  balance. Doc’s fingers caught him at the 
  base of the skull before he could move. 
  The others gave up. They could not 
  withstand the bronze demon who seemed 
  everywhere at once. 
  When Monk and Chemistry arrived, 
  the fighting was over. 
  They wasted no time in conversation. 
  Ropes were dropped; Ham fastened Barbara 
  Hughes to one end, put Habeas in her arms. 
  They were whisked aboard. Then Ham and 
  Long Tom came up, hand over hand. 
  
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  64 
  Beneath them, a fear-stricken man 
  ran by, dived into the den where The Monster 
  was. 
  It was Barge Deeter. 
  “And—and all the time I thought he 
  might be the real criminal,” the girl said. 
  “No,” corrected Doc. “He was only a 
  lieutenant. The real villain was Soung 
  Percill.” 
   
   
  THE cable holding the dirigible was 
  cut loose, slowly the big gas bag rose into 
  the air. Doc and his men had a dirigible of 
  their own. They had no difficulty in operating 
  this one. 
  “How did you know it was Soung 
  Percill?” the girl asked when the first rush of 
  work was over. 
  “His escape on the way to the 
  crematory was obviously faked,” Doc said. 
  “He wanted to be thought dead in case you 
  ever returned to Chicago, and Barge Deeter 
  did not want to kill you. And, also, Percill was 
  afraid Johnny and Renny might come after 
  him if they thought he had killed me. 
  “If everything quieted down later, he 
  could reappear and say he had been 
  kidnapped. I recognized his voice when 
  orders were given from the observation room 
  of the crematory. He probably came in 
  aboard the same plane you did, but remained 
  out of sight.” 
  “And he had been a mysterious 
  figure in New York’s Chinatown for some 
  time,” Long Tom put in. “We all knew that. 
  His pretense at being an archaeologist was 
  only a screen. Half Oriental, half white, he 
  combined the worst features of both. It is 
  easy to see he was plotting to get his grip on 
  Asia, probably intended to foment rebellions 
  there with his crook army, and establish 
  himself as an emperor.” 
  The girl sighed. “It—it has all been so 
  fast, it is hard to think.” Her eyes fell on 
  Monk, and she gulped suddenly. 
  “B-but where did you come from?” 
  “Seized by The Monster,” Monk 
  grinned, “but they decided to let me live. 
  They thought they might use me as a trading 
  basis if Doc got too tough for them.” 
  “But, what—” 
  Monk led her to the window of the 
  dirigible, pointed below. Far beneath them, 
  was a huge, monstrous shape. It was in the 
  shape of a giant spider. It had eight legs. 
  It swung from beneath the dirigible 
  by long cables. It had been whipped out of its 
  den as the dirigible rose. 
  “A fake,” Monk explained. “Built like 
  Hollywood builds freak prehistoric beasts, 
  this thing hung from under the dirigible. Men 
  were inside it, could talk by telephone to 
  those in the dirigible.” 
  “Then that explains why it fled when 
  the Very light went on,” Ham gasped. “The 
  men were afraid we would see the cables 
  and know it was a fake.” 
  “It explains many things,” Doc said 
  quietly. “It explains why it could only be used 
  in a storm, when thunder hid the sound of the 
  dirigible’s motors, and also let the dirigible 
  hide in the clouds. During the World War, 
  German dirigibles used the same principle, 
  lowering observation cars beneath clouds, 
  while the dirigible itself remained hidden 
  above.” 
  “And that guy that got killed when 
  you were staked down, the one with the 
  portable 
  radio, 
  he 
  had 
  been 
  sending 
  messages, telling The Monster when to 
  come,” Monk explained. “They weren’t afraid 
  of the Indians; they left this valley alone. But 
  white men pay no attention to superstition, 
  and it was only a question of time until some 
  colonist learned what was going on. They 
  had to drive the colonists out.” 
  “But—but 
  the 
  odor,” 
  the 
  girl 
  exclaimed. 
  Ham looked out a window of the 
  dirigible. His face turned green suddenly, he 
  walked away. Monk looked at him curiously. 
  “Doc, I think, figured that out quick,” 
  Monk said. 
  The 
  bronze 
  man 
  nodded. 
  “A 
  combination of chemicals was used,” he 
  explained. “Musk was one, which attracted 
  Chemistry. A nauseous gas was another. 
  The third was new, is used by physicians 
  when they wish to hypnotize patients 
  preparatory to operations.” 
  “And you knew what it was all 
  along?” the girl asked. 
  “Soung Percill was the real monster,” 
  Doc said softly. “He terrorized a colony of 
  worthy people. Yes, the hair that John Alden 
  sent was the real clue. John Alden mailed 
  that from Salt Lake City with his letter telling 
  
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  65 
  what he had seen. Barge Deeter made 
  repeated efforts to regain it.” 
  Ham gulped. He thought that rather 
  an understatement. 
  There was silence for a moment. 
  Thoughts turned to the colonists. Those 
  colonists would be back in their homes by 
  tomorrow, safe and happy again. They would 
  have their chance for real, wholesome lives. 
  The criminals, those who had not killed each 
  other, were trapped in the hidden canyon. 
  Federal men would pick them up. 
  Long Tom sighed happily. The case 
  was over. 
  “And Barge Deeter, I wonder what 
  became of him?” the girl said reflectively. 
  Doc Savage did not reply. He was 
  operating the dirigible. Perhaps that was the 
  reason. But Ham thought there was another 
  reason. He gulped, glanced once more out 
  the window at the huge, lumbering shape of 
  the mechanical monster, dangling beneath 
  them. 
  A body was half in, half out the jaws 
  of The Monster. Those jaws could work 
  without injuring the victim, but they could also 
  rend and tear. Mangling machinery had been 
  installed there by Soung Percill. 
  Barge 
  Deeter 
  had 
  known 
  The 
  Monster would be lifted up, would float from 
  the valley of hell; he had tried to climb inside 
  the fake beast. Somehow, he had tripped the 
  mangling machinery. His body was horribly 
  torn. 
  The sunlight flashed briefly through 
  his yellow hair. 
  For a moment, that hair appeared 
  bronze. 
  The Indian legend had been borne 
  out. The Monster had seized a bronze-haired 
  man. It would never bother Arcadia Valley 
  again. 
   
   
  THE END 
   
   
   
  DEVIL ON THE MOON 
   
  An exciting novel, complete in the next issue of Doc Savage, Doc and his 
  companions battling a new menace that strikes from the sky. The 
  diabolical nature can be revealed only in the reading of it—so don't miss 
  the next issue of 
   
  DOC SAVAGE 
   
  Ten Cents—At All News Stands 
   
   
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Vault2.0.-.Fiction-and-audiobooks/Books/R/Robeson, Kenneth/060 The Mountain Monster.pdf