TEXT:  THE ROAR DEVIL
  A Doc Savage Adventure by KENNETH ROBESON
  
  Table of Contents
  THE ROAR DEVIL............................................................................................................................................1
  A Doc Savage Adventure by KENNETH ROBESON............................................................................1
  Chapter 1. THE DEVIL IN THE WOODS.............................................................................................1
  Chapter II. CALAMITY..........................................................................................................................6
  Chapter III. THE BRONZE MAN.........................................................................................................11
  Chapter IV. THE PERIL PUZZLE........................................................................................................16
  Chapter V. RENNY AND THE SIREN................................................................................................21
  Chapter VI. A NIGHT FOR TRADING................................................................................................27
  Chapter VII. WATERLOO FOR TWO.................................................................................................32
  Chapter VIII. THE DEAD MAN'S VOICE...........................................................................................36
  Chapter IX. THE DEVILS COLLIDE...................................................................................................42
  Chapter X. TRAIL.................................................................................................................................47
  Chapter XI. HIS HONOR......................................................................................................................52
  Chapter XII. THE WRONGED INVENTOR........................................................................................57
  Chapter XIII. ONE BY ONE.................................................................................................................64
  Chapter XIV. CANDIDATES FOR DEATH........................................................................................66
  Chapter XV. THE BREAK....................................................................................................................72
  Chapter XVI. THE UNSUCCESSFUL SURRENDER........................................................................76
  Chapter XVII. MAYOR RICKETTS....................................................................................................81
  Chapter XVIII. RENDEZVOUS...........................................................................................................87
  Chapter XIX. CACHE...........................................................................................................................92
  Chapter XX. HELL IN A ROCK BOX.................................................................................................96
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  THE ROAR DEVIL
  A Doc Savage Adventure by KENNETH ROBESON
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  http://www.blackmask.com
  Chapter 1. THE DEVIL IN THE WOODS
  • 
  Chapter II. CALAMITY
  • 
  Chapter III. THE BRONZE MAN
  • 
  Chapter IV. THE PERIL PUZZLE
  • 
  Chapter V. RENNY AND THE SIREN
  • 
  Chapter VI. A NIGHT FOR TRADING
  • 
  Chapter VII. WATERLOO FOR TWO
  • 
  Chapter VIII. THE DEAD MAN'S VOICE
  • 
  Chapter IX. THE DEVILS COLLIDE
  • 
  Chapter X. TRAIL
  • 
  Chapter XI. HIS HONOR
  • 
  Chapter XII. THE WRONGED INVENTOR
  • 
  Chapter XIII. ONE BY ONE
  • 
  Chapter XIV. CANDIDATES FOR DEATH
  • 
  Chapter XV. THE BREAK
  • 
  Chapter XVI. THE UNSUCCESSFUL SURRENDER
  • 
  Chapter XVII. MAYOR RICKETTS
  • 
  Chapter XVIII. RENDEZVOUS
  • 
  Chapter XIX. CACHE
  • 
  Chapter XX. HELL IN A ROCK BOX
  • 
  Chapter 1. THE DEVIL IN THE WOODS
  THE flat−faced man looked tough. He also gave the impression of one  who had been around a bit. Yet he
  was deceived by a very simple ruse. 
  He had been looking into the radiator of the gray car to see how  much water there was, and when he
  straightened, he saw the purse and  the wrist watch. 
  He should have realized they had not been there a moment before. He  didn't. 
  He had been a fighter once. There were mounds of gristle about his  eyes, his nose was flat and his ears did
  not have their original shape.  He looked evil, but not stupid. 
  The flat−faced man rubbed his jaw with the back of his hand, which  held a stubby black pistol, then he
  walked over to the hand bag and the  watch and examined them. 
  The hand bag looked expensive, but it was hard to tell, because the  makers of imitations have become
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  skillful. Six diamonds around the  wrist watch dial sparkled in the afternoon sun in a manner which could  not
  have been equaled by glass. That was not cheap. 
  Then the man made his mistake. He pocketed his gun, so as to pick  up both bag and watch at once. It was
  hard to say why he did that.  Greed, possibly. He got his hands on the articles. 
  "Now hold onto them!" directed a woman's voice. 
  She came out from behind a bush that was thick with new, green  spring leaves. She held a light .22−caliber
  automatic rifle pointed at  the flat−faced man. 
  The man made an awful face that he must have practiced back in the  days when he was a fighter, to scare
  opponents in the ring. 
  "You're the babe whats been followin' us!" he growled. He scowled  at the little rifle. 
  The girl − she was in her early twenties − let him look more  directly into the muzzle of the .22. 
  "The hole where they come out may not look big," she said. "But  don't let that fool you. They're the new
  high−speed cartridges. Hold  onto the bag and the watch." 
  The flat−faced man held onto them. 
  "You are Stupe Davin," said the girl. 
  "Never heard of the guy," the man denied promptly. 
  "Bend over and write it out in the dust of the road with your  finger." 
  "Huh?" The man looked blank. 
  "I am deaf," said the girl. "Write it out." 
  The man used a finger and scratched, "D−o n−o−t k−n−o−w D−a−v−i−n,"  in the dirt. 
  "Liar," snapped the girl. "You pretend to be the private secretary  of Maurice Zachies, known as the Dove of
  Peace, or Dove Zachies.  Actually, you are his bodyguard and hired killer." 
  The man scraped, "N−o!" in the road. 
  The girl now searched him, and found a driver's license made out to  Albert W. Davin. 
  "You are Stupe Davin," she said, and pocketed the license. 
  The man suddenly abandoned pretense. His flat face went purple with  rage. 
  "The devil with you!" he snarled. "I got your number!" 
  "Write it!" the girl commanded. 
  "You're workin' for the Roar Devil!" the man yelled. 
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  THE girl stood very still, and there was on her features the  slightly blank and inquisitive look of those who
  do not hear well. 
  "I cannot hear you," she said. "Write it." 
  The man only snarled stubbornly. 
  She poked him with the gun. "Write it!" 
  He growled, "Listen, babe, I ain't opening my face to no − " 
  He did not finish, for the girl struck him suddenly and  unexpectedly with his own automatic pistol, which she
  had taken from  his pocket. She was tall, athletic, and there was nothing mincing about  the way she swung the
  gun against his temple. The flat−faced man did  not move after he fell. 
  There was a cheerful recklessness in the girl's manner as she held  the fellow's wrist to ascertain that he was
  only senseless. She seemed  to be enjoying herself hugely, as if it were only a game. She dragged  the man
  over and dumped him into a thick brush clump. 
  "And you are Dove Zachies's number one killer," she sniffed. 
  A pocket of her khaki hunting jacket yielded a small box which,  according to the label, held capsules of a
  standardized sleeping potion  to be sold only upon prescription. She got three capsules down the  senseless
  man's throat, doing it in a manner which a physician could  not have improved upon. 
  She seemed in a hurry, but took time for a brief examination of the  car − the doors, particularly. Their glass
  was thick and bulletproof.  She compared the license numbers with the notation in a small green  book, and
  seemed satisfied. 
  "Zachies's car," she said aloud. 
  She struck out through the woods, eyeing the ground. 
  It had been a wet spring in this mountain section of New York  State, and the vegetation was luxuriant, the
  earth soft enough to hold  footprints. 
  The girl found tracks before long. They had been made by a man with  small feet, and the fellow was
  evidently not dressed for the woods,  because he walked around brush clumps which a man in stout garb
  would  have breasted. 
  The manner in which the trail meandered showed something else, too.  The fellow was seeking the high spots,
  rocks and small hills. He was  undoubtedly searching for something. 
  Once, where he had stumbled and fallen, there was a print which  showed he was carrying a submachine gun.
  The mark left by the drum  magazine was unmistakable. 
  The girl was eyeing the marks when the roaring sound came. 
  THERE must have been some intangible forewarning before the sound  came, for a jaybird in a nearby tree
  had a sudden, frightened spasm.  The jay screeched and beat madly among the treetops, as if evading some
  nameless and unseen horror. Experts concede that nature's creatures,  birds and animals and the like,
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  frequently sense dangers which humans  miss, and possibly this accounted for the jay's animation in the warm
  spring sunshine. 
  Then came the roar. It was very faint at inception, almost  inaudible, then it became as a locust swarm, and the
  locusts,  invisible, expanded to titanic proportions, so that eardrums ached and  heads nearly split from the
  clamor. 
  All through the woods, birds beat above the tree−tops in frightened  haste, and down in the brush, rabbits,
  chucks, squirrels and an  occasional deer broke cover. 
  Of all in the woodland, only the girl seemed to behave in a normal  manner. She stood perfectly still and
  looked at the frightened wild  life. Then she lifted hands and touched her ears. Her features were  puzzled. 
  Then, with wild suddenness, she raced out from among the trees,  sought the center of a clearing and flung
  herself prone. She was  motionless there. It was as if she awaited some incredible happening. 
  But nothing occurred, except that the fantastic roaring died as  mysteriously as it had arisen, leaving only the
  uproar of the birds. 
  The girl waited a long time. When she finally arose, her features −  she was remarkably attractive in a
  satisfying way − wore a puzzled  expression, as if she had expected something that had not happened, and  was
  disappointed. 
  She continued following the footprints of the man. It was not long  before she saw him. 
  He was a man small in stature but exceedingly plump, and he had  gray hair, a neat gray beard. He wore a
  gray suit, a gray beret, and  the impression was of a rotund little fellow, a peaceful dove of a man. 
  He held a submachine gun with both hands, and he seemed frightened;  puzzled. He drove nervous glances
  about. 
  "Dove Zachies!" the girl murmured, and lifted her light rifle. 
  Her rifle was a costly target weapon, equipped with a mount for a  telescope sight. She clipped the telescope
  in place and drew a  deliberate bead on the man with the submachine gun. She held her  position for a time,
  then lowered the gun. 
  "He must be taken alive," she told herself, almost inaudibly. That  was the order." 
  The plump gray man, "Dove" Zachies, moved on through the woods, and  the girl trailed him, her manner one
  of infinite caution. 
  Dove Zachies was obviously familiar with the region, for he made  directly for certain vantage points which
  gave him a view of his  surroundings. His object seemed to be to make sure no one was about. 
  Zachies held a general course to the westward, and shortly came  upon a cabin of some size. The cabin
  windows were open, but the door  closed. 
  Zachies knocked upon the door. There was no answer, and he knocked  twice more, then tried the knob. The
  door was not locked, and he  entered, his machine gun alert. 
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  Something less than five minutes later, he popped outdoors. He had  received a shock. It showed on his face.
  He was terrified. 
  He scuttled into the woods as if terribly afraid of being seen, or  being overtaken by some dire calamity. 
  From her concealment behind bushes, the girl stared after him.  Curiosity on her features, but no fear.
  Suddenly, as if she intended to  inspect the cabin, then overtake Dove Zachies, she ran forward.  Entering the
  cabin, she kept the .22 rifle alert. 
  She came into a large room, with a fireplace at one end, a table in  the middle, and on each side a wall of
  bookshelves. The shelves were  laden with plain−looking volumes which bore dry, profound titles. She
  glanced at the back of one. Its title read: 
  BOSTANTI'S PAPERS ON THE 
  ELECTROKINETICS OF 
  VOLATILIZATION 
  The girl made a face and glanced at others. They were all heavy  scientific tomes, many being merely binders
  in which scientific  pamphlets had been inserted. 
  The cabin had more than one room. The girl advanced to a door,  shoved it open with the muzzle of her rifle,
  and started to enter. 
  She jerked into a sort of frozen motionlessness and stared at the  living dead man in the room. 
  LIVING and at the same time dead, was the only thing which  adequately described the man's appearance. He
  was a comparatively young  man − no more than twenty−five − and he was freckled, had somewhat  coarse
  features. He was in khaki trousers and an undershirt, with a  rubber apron about his middle. 
  One end of a rope was tied to one of the young man's ankles. The  rope was some fifteen feet long, and the
  other end was tied to a roof  beam. A child with moderately strong fingers could have untied the  young man.
  But he had obviously been there for days. He looked gaunt,  starved, pitiful. 
  He was standing slackly erect. If he saw the competent young woman  with the rifle, he gave no sign. He did
  not even look at her. 
  "You!" the girl said sharply. "What's the gag?" 
  The starved−looking young man swayed slowly, erratically. He was  like a mechanical robot with some of his
  cogs and levers out of order.  He was trying to turn around, but he fell down. 
  "It's a good act!" the girl said dryly. 
  Then her eyes became wide. The young man had fallen on a piece of  glass, and it had cut his hand, so that
  crimson was sheeting slowly  over the floor; but he gave no sign of feeling or knowing. 
  The girl whipped a glance over the room. It had been a laboratory,  but its contents had been ravaged.
  Apparatus was broken. Empty stands  and pedestals indicated much of it had been carried off bodily. There
  were ax marks on some of the tables, in some of the coils of the gutted  electrical paraphernalia. Some one had
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  systematically wrecked the  place. 
  The young woman lunged to the starved man, tore off his undershirt  and tied it about his cut hand. She felt of
  his skin. He was almost as  cold as the dead. She shuddered, then shook him. 
  "Snap out of it!" she urged. "Who are you? What's wrong with you?" 
  He made blubbering sounds that were quite horrible. 
  She tried again, shaking him and demanding, "What is your  connection with Dove Zachies?" 
  Dove Zachies, in the door where he had appeared so silently that  the girl had not heard, said, "I hope that you
  will let me assure you  that he has no connection whatever." 
  Chapter II. CALAMITY
  THE girl had laid her rifle on the floor. She reached for it  instinctively, then withdrew her hands when she
  saw the submachine gun  Zachies had trained upon her. 
  Zachies looked even more peaceful and dovelilke at close range. 
  "I started back to my car and ran across the tracks you left in  trailing me," he told the girl. He had a smooth,
  cooing manner of  delivering his words. "Wasn't I lucky?" 
  Zachies advanced, put a foot on her gun, grasped the barrel and  smashed the light weapon, ruining it. Then he
  scrutinized the girl  curiously. 
  "I've seen you," he said grimly. "Been trailing me the last few  days, ain't you − have you not?" He made the
  grammatical correction as  an afterthought. 
  The girl shrugged, did not answer. 
  Zachies grunted, "Working for the Roar Devil, are you not?" 
  The girl blinked, seemed about to say something, but did not. 
  "You'll sing plenty before I'm through with you, sister," Zachies  told her. "For a long time, I've wanted to get
  my hands on one of your  crowd. You can tell me things. For instance, who is this Roar Devil?  How does he
  manage to accomplish the infernal things he does?" 
  The girl said nothing. Instead of being afraid, she was bright−eyed  with interest. She even smiled slightly. 
  "A lot of babes would be scared silly," Zachies said dryly. "You're  a queer one. But leave it to the Roar Devil
  to pick the tops. Whoever  he is, he is good." Zachies suddenly made a hard fighting jaw queerly  at odds with
  his meekly birdlike exterior. "But not good enough, babe!" 
  The girl had tucked a small purse into a pocket of her canvas  hunting jacket, and Zachies wrenched that out
  and went through it.  There were initials on the outside: 
  R.M.K. 
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  Inside was a case of cards which bore a name corresponding with the  initials. He eyed them. 
  "Retta Marie Kenn," he said. "Is that your name?" 
  The girl smiled, "You will have to write it out. I am quite deaf." 
  "Yes?" The man scowled at her, as if not sure whether she were  telling the truth. He shook his hand and
  continued going through the  purse, keeping, however, a close watch on the girl and on the  starved−looking
  young man who was picketed by the rope. 
  Zachies came upon the driver's license which had belonged to the  burly driver of the car back at the road. He
  had no trouble fathoming  how it had come into her possession. 
  "So you gathered in Stupe Davin," he said grimly. "I'll kick his  flat face off for this!" 
  The girl smiled nicely at him. 
  Zachies snarled. Then he went on with his search of her belongings.  He came upon a telegram, opened it, and
  read it with much interest: 
  MISS RETTA KENN 
  POWERTOWN N Y 
  TRAIL ZACHIES AND REPORT EACH MOVE HE MAKES STOP IF POSSIBLE SEIZE  HIM AND
  DELIVER HIM TO ME 
  V VENABLE MEAR 
  "Who the devil is V. Venable Mear," Dove Zachies yelled. 
  "Write it out!" the girl pleaded. 
  DOVE ZACHIES made snarling sounds and tramped the room. He was the  kind of a man who could not
  possibly look dangerous, however, and his  present rage gave the impression of a pigeon pouting. 
  He came to a stop with an arm leveled at the starved young man who  seemed gripped by some weird stupor. 
  "Who is this fellow?" Zachies demanded. "What ails him? What makes  the fool stand there with that rope
  around his leg? Why doesn't he  untie himself?" 
  The girl said, "If you will write it. I have a pencil and paper  which I carry for − " 
  "Ahr−r−rr!" Zachies howled. "Shut up!" 
  Zachies glared at the girl's paper and pencil − he could see them  protruding from the upper pocket of her
  jacket. But he made no effort  to write out his queries. Instead, he ripped off stout copper wire from  a ruined
  electrical coil in a corner of the room and used it to tie the  girl. 
  She resented that. She scratched his face, hit him in the eye and  managed to kick him once, but he got her
  tied. Then he made a circuit  of the place, looking it over, examining discarded shipping crates, old  envelopes,
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  the names on newspaper wrappers. He came back and confronted  the strange−acting young man who looked
  so starved. 
  "You Flagler D'Aughtell?" he demanded. "Or are you his helper, Mort  Collins? You two guys are inventors
  or something, ain't you?" 
  The starved young man made a bubbling noise. 
  Zachies eyed him closely and shuddered. 
  "There's somethin' sure wrong with you," he muttered. 
  Zachies found a lean−to addition in the rear, which had served as a  kitchen. On a table stood a bucket of
  water. It had been there for  days, judging by the number of insects which had fallen into it.  Zachies got a
  dipperful, sloshed some in the starved young man's face,  then tried to make the fellow drink some. 
  The young man did not seem to know how to drink. When Zachies held  his head back and poured water
  down his throat, it was like pouring  water into a hose. The young fellow made no struggle, did not even
  swallow. 
  "Are you D'Aughtell?" Zachies questioned again. "Or are you Mort  Collins? If you're Collins, where is
  D'Aughtell?" 
  But the young man had not revived sufficiently to talk. Indeed, if  he had revived at all, it was not perceptible. 
  Zachies scratched his head. Then a bright idea seemed to come. He  leaned close to the strangely afflicted
  young man. 
  "Roar Devil!" he bellowed. "Roar Devil!" 
  The young man moved a little, as if by terrific effort. One of his  arms came up slightly. It was as if he were
  trying to get it  protectingly across his face. 
  "Darned if you don't know something!" Zachies muttered. "But the  problem is − how to get it out, of you." 
  He considered, and apparently concluded the girl was a more ready  source of information, for he turned upon
  her. 
  "Who is this Roar Devil?" he growled. 
  "Write it out," the girl requested. 
  Zachies snarled, then wrenched the wires off her wrists and from  the pocket of her hunting jacket withdrew
  the paper and pencil. 
  He started his writing with a fierce jab of the pencil point at the  paper. He started violently, emitted a sharp
  cry, and peered at his  finger tips. They bore a strange brownish stain where the pencil had  rested. 
  Zachies made a hoarse sound. He began to sway. He seemed about to  faint. 
  The girl got up calmly from the floor. 
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  Zachies stared at her. He seemed to be growing weaker and weaker. 
  He gulped, "You did something − " 
  "The pencil," the girl said dryly. "It's covered with a chemical  mixture you probably never heard of. It won't
  kill you, if that's any  consolation." 
  Zachies sighed loudly and fell flat on his face. 
  THE girl's ankles were still wired. She freed them without  particular haste, then used the same tough copper
  strands to bind Dove  Zachies. 
  The chemical mixture which had made Zachies senseless when he  touched the pencil, apparently did not last
  long, for the man began to  stir feebly before the girl finished tying him, so that she had to hold  his limbs. She
  found an upset tool drawer among the laboratory wreckage  and from its litter unearthed a roll of black
  friction tape. 
  "Got adenoids?" she asked Zachies, who had opened his eyes. 
  "Naw!" Zachies was shortsighted enough to growl. 
  The girl grabbed his head, pinched it between his knees and began  draping strips of tape across his lips. 
  "I once heard of a man dying after they taped his lips shut in a  robbery," she said conversationally. "He had
  adenoids." 
  With Zachies fastened securely, the girl gave attention to the  starved young man who was picketed by the
  rope. She tried Zachies's  trick. 
  "Roar Devil!" she yelled at the young man. 
  There was enough reaction to prove conclusively that the name Roar  Devil meant something momentous to
  the young man. 
  The girl now tried to revive the young man enough to talk. She gave  him water, forcing it down his throat,
  and forced down part of a can of  corn which she found in the lean−to kitchen. She got nowhere. To her
  urging to speak, he only blubbered and mumbled. 
  The young woman apparently did not trust him to remain picketed by  the rope, for she used copper wire on
  his ankles and, after some  hesitancy, tape on his lips. 
  It became apparent that she was going to leave the cabin. Zachies  made whizzing noises through his nose and
  flounced about. The girl,  thinking he had something important to say, pulled part of the tape  free of his lips. 
  "What is it?" she demanded. 
  "You ain't deaf, after all, are you?" Zachies growled. 
  "Is that all you wanted to know?" she snapped. 
  "I got to wondering − " 
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  She jammed the gagging tape back in place. Her rifle was hopeless,  she saw upon examination. She picked up
  the submachine gun of Dove  Zachies and balanced it thoughtfully. 
  "Never do to walk into Powertown with this," she concluded, and  discarded it. 
  She picked up the trick pencil which had been Zachies's Waterloo,  using a handkerchief so that her fingers
  would not come in contact with  it, and clipped it back in her pocket. Then she left the cabin. 
  She walked rapidly, and since the sun was hot for this portion of  the spring season, she was soon carrying her
  jacket. She was setting a  definite course to the southward, but when a bare knob of a hill  appeared off to her
  left, she angled over to it and used a pair of  diminutive binoculars to scrutinize the surrounding country. 
  It was mountainous terrain − some of the most rugged in the eastern  United States. Woodland covered the
  ridges, leaving few bare spots, but  the size of the hills and the sweeping depth of the valleys was almost
  awe−inspiring. 
  Directly below, a glittering blue mirror under a line of tremendous  cliffs, was a sheet of water. The lake was
  confined by a towering white  concrete dam at the lower end. 
  Within view from where the girl stood there were portions of two  other dams, one of these a structure of
  tremendous size. This section −  hundreds of square miles in area − was the great Powertown Drainage  Basin
  Project. 
  It consisted of several auxiliary dams and one main dam of vast  size. The purpose of these dams was not only
  the generating of power,  but also as a water supply for New York City. The metropolis had become  so vast
  that the older and smaller reservoirs were inadequate. 
  The young woman seemed to have stopped to rest as much as for any  other reason, and now she went on,
  setting a crow−flight course as  nearly as the brush and the precipitous going permitted. This seemed to  be a
  short−cut across the mountains. 
  Unexpectedly, she stopped. Her face assumed a queerly set  expression. 
  THEN it came, not gradually out of nothingness as it had before,  but suddenly, violently, with a whooping
  moan that sent birds  shrieking. It was the roar, fantastic, unearthly, a sound that was like  no other. It did not
  throb, did not travel in waves, and there was no  gobbling syncopation of echoes such as might have been set
  up by an  ordinary noise − or if there was, the roaring that was the father of  them all drowned out all else. 
  Then it stopped. Abruptly, like something broken off. And it left  behind it a world that did not seem normal. 
  There was no sound now. Where there had been tumult, there was now  profound quiet. The birds wheeled in
  the sky − and they must have been  crying out excitedly. Yet there was no slightest noise audible. 
  The ordinary silence of the woodland had not fallen. It was more  than that. All sound had completely
  stopped. Then other things  happened. 
  The earth jumped − jumped like a live thing that had been kicked.  The girl reeled, flailed her arms trying to
  keep her balance, then  fell. Rocks rolled on the ground like popcorn on the bottom of a pan,  only not as
  violently. 
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  After the first tremor, there were others, but they subsided  rapidly in violence. The entire surface of the earth
  had apparently  shifted. 
  The girl arose from where she had been flung, ran to a tree, eyed  it doubtfully, then began to climb. 
  She was halfway up when, as if an electric switch had been turned  on, the world seemed to come alive.
  Before, there had been utterly no  sound. Now there was plenty. 
  She could hear the scrapings of her own climbing efforts, could  hear her own labored breathing. And the
  birds were making a great  uproar. There was something else, too − a distant rumbling. She looked  toward the
  source of that noise. 
  Below her was the dam which she had viewed earlier. It was  collapsing. The central section was already
  gone. A vast torrent of  water poured through. On either side, more of the big concrete wall was  rapidly
  upsetting. The valley below was filling with a writhing monster  of water that uprooted trees, toppled along
  boulders as large as small  mansions. 
  Craning her neck, the girl perceived a house in the path of the  flood. Near it was a barn, other outbuildings. A
  man and a woman, their  figures made tiny by distance, ran out of the house and stared up the  valley at the
  wall of water. Then they raced to a small car near by and  drove madly for safety, until they were lost to view
  among trees. 
  The girl shuddered. It did not look as if the fugitives could  escape. 
  The young woman watched for some time from her vantage point in the  tree. She seemed particularly
  interested in the effect the flood would  have when it reached the big reservoir. Would the latter hold? 
  It held. The young woman waited fully three hours before she became  certain. 
  Then she went on toward Powertown, and when she drew near the small  metropolis, she went slowly and
  furtively, as if extremely desirous of  escaping discovery. 
  Chapter III. THE BRONZE MAN
  POWERTOWN was in a nervous sweat, and with reason. It had dawned on  the town that fully half of its
  population was in danger, and that some  millions of dollars in property were menaced. 
  Engineers had originally lain out Powertown so that it was above  any normal flood which would result from a
  disaster to the big dam,  which was situated some two miles up the valley. But the engineers had  reckoned
  without the sudden popularity of Powertown. 
  It had become the rage as a summer and winter resort, due to the  attractiveness of the surrounding lakes, and
  as a result, Powertown had  spread down on the floor of the valley until most of the business  section was in
  the path of a flood of any major proportions. 
  Persons in the streets looked frightened. A good part of the  population had fled to the surrounding mountains.
  Since it appeared  that the darn was not in imminent danger of collapse, some of the  fugitives were returning. 
  In the new, resplendent Municipal Office Building, which was  another name for city hall, the mayor, the city
  council and other  important citizens were conferring. Their faces were heavy. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter III. THE BRONZE MAN
  11
  
  "It's terrible," said His Honor, Mayor Leland Ricketts. 
  "It's damned mysterious," said the head of the council. "The dam  that broke this afternoon was supposed to be
  absolutely safe. The  engineers said it was proof even against an earthquake." 
  "It was no earthquake," snapped Mayor Ricketts. 
  "But the earth moved," retorted the other. "We all felt it. Didn't  the shock break windows all over town?" 
  The city attorney put in, "What about the two engineers whom the  council hired to learn what was causing
  these weird shocks? This  afternoon was not the first shock. What about the two engineers?" 
  The mayor pounded with his gavel for silence. 
  "My friends and fellow citizens," he said heavily, "I called this  meeting in the face of an emergency and a
  mystery. You all know there  have been previous shocks such as the one this afternoon, although none  of the
  others resulted in as much damage. These shocks began three  weeks ago, and have continued almost daily,
  resulting in landslides  which have buried roads, broken water mains, and otherwise proved a  menace to the
  sterling citizens of this city who − " 
  "This is no time for a political speech," whispered the city  attorney. "Get down to brass tacks." 
  The mayor frowned. 
  "The city council voted to call in engineers to ascertain what was  wrong," he said. "We did so, hiring two
  very famous geologists. During  the past few days, these two geologists have been going around in the
  mountains with their instruments." 
  "What did they find out?" some one asked. 
  "They must have learned something," said the mayor. "We do not know  what it is, however." 
  "Is this a riddle?" queried the city attorney. 
  "Quiet, please," requested the mayor. "I have called this meeting  to inform the city council that something has
  happened to our two  engineers." 
  "What?" several voices chorused. 
  "That is what I want to show you," said his honor. 
  He signaled with a hand, and white−clad hospital internes entered  the hall, leading two men who acted as if
  they were dead, yet alive. 
  These two men could not walk alone. The internes had to lift each  man's foot and advance it with every step.
  Both men were very pale; and  when one's mouth fell open, he seemed unable to close it without  assistance
  from one of the white clad escort. The masklike rigidity of  their features was horrible, and a mutter of wonder
  went up from the  assembled city fathers. 
  "What ails them?" demanded the city attorney. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter III. THE BRONZE MAN
  12
  
  "That", said his honor, "is what we would like to know. They  haven't been able to find out at our new
  hospital." 
  "How long have they been this way?" the city attorney gulped. 
  "Since yesterday. They were found wandering in the mountains." 
  THERE was much buzzing conversation, and a crowd gathered about the  two weirdly afflicted engineers to
  examine them curiously. Close  inspection of the two victims had the effect of giving every one a case  of
  jitters. 
  The mayor banged order with his gavel. 
  "None of this must get into the newspapers," he said warningly. 
  "No publicity, above all things!" emphatically agreed a man who  owned the city's two leading hotels. "People
  will stop coming to  Powertown." 
  "It might be well if they did," snapped the city attorney. "If the  big dam breaks, it'll wipe out half the town,
  including the resort  section." 
  "No, no!" insisted the hotel owner. "There is no danger." 
  "The devil there isn't!" retorted the other. "You're thinking of  your pocketbook, and not of the lives
  endangered." 
  "I resent that!" yelled the other. 
  The mayor's gavel pounded down noisily. 
  "We are losing sight of our objective!" he bellowed. 
  "What objective?" demanded the city attorney. 
  "The solution of the mystery behind this," said his honor. "We know  there is something terrible going on.
  That it is no natural phenomenon,  such as earthquakes, we know, because of what happened to our two
  engineers. They must have stumbled upon something. What it was, we  don't know, because they cannot talk.
  Something horrible has happened  to them." 
  "Have you got a plan, or are you just talking?" asked the city  attorney. 
  "I have a plan," replied the mayor. "We should have thought of it  before. There is a man who makes a career
  of helping other people out  of trouble. He is a very remarkable man, from what I hear, and just the  fellow we
  need." 
  The city attorney frowned, then nodded to himself. 
  "A very remarkable man whose career is getting others out of jams,"  he said. "That description suggests a
  name. But if it is the same  fellow I am thinking of, what makes you think he will come up here.  That man is
  big time. He makes kingdoms and things like that. I've read  about him in the newspapers." 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter III. THE BRONZE MAN
  13
  
  "What'll it cost?" asked the man who owned the hotels. 
  "This man does not work for money," said the mayor. 
  "Now I know we're thinking about the same fellow," observed the  city attorney. "Doc Savage?" 
  "Doc Savage is the man," agreed Mayor Leland Ricketts. 
  THERE was no great excitement at mention of Doc Savage − perhaps  due to the fact that these were all staid
  businessmen. Several nodded,  however, and there was a murmur of conversation. 
  It seemed that all of them had heard of Doc Savage. 
  The mayor banged the meeting into parliamentary session, and it was  formally decided to appeal to Doc
  Savage for assistance in solving the  mystery of the violent earth convulsions in the vicinity of Powertown,  to
  say nothing of the strange affliction which had overcome the two  hired engineers. 
  His honor, the mayor, agreed upon as being the most convincing  talker in town, was delegated the job of
  getting in touch with Doc  Savage. It was decided to do this by long−distance telephone. But there  a hitch
  occurred. 
  The weird earth shock had caused breakage of the telephone wires,  which were carried, in the modern
  manner, in a conduit underground. The  telephone company advised repairs would soon be completed. 
  Waiting, the city fathers engaged in more conversation. 
  "Queer roaring noises have been reported as heard in the mountains  near by," said the city attorney. "It is my
  opinion that these have  something to do with the earth convulsions." 
  "Opinion based on what?" queried his honor. 
  "On logic," snapped the other. "The roarings are queer. So are the  earth shakings, earthquakes, or whatever
  they are." 
  "They are not earthquakes," some one pointed out loudly.  "Seismographs in other States do not register them.
  An earthquake would  register. These don't." 
  THE conversation was lapsing into a rehashing of the situation,  with no new angles being brought out. His
  honor tried the telephone  again, and was informed that an hour or more might elapse before the  long−distance
  wires were repaired. More than one break had been found. 
  The hospital internes had gone with the two queerly afflicted  engineers. Men with urgent business to attend to
  began drifting out of  the hall. 
  The Municipal Office Building was a large structure, and flanking  it at the rear was one of the town's
  numerous hotels. This hostelry was  neither large nor pretentious. There was a courtyard between it and the
  Municipal Office Building. No one ever frequented this court. 
  Possibly the deserted court was the reason why a tiny wire,  stretching from a hotel window to the roof of the
  Municipal Office  Building, had escaped discovery. However, it was a very fine wire, no  larger than a hair. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter III. THE BRONZE MAN
  14
  
  Shades were drawn over the hotel window into which the wire led.  They were thick shades, and it was
  gloomy in the room. It would have  taxed an observer to catch more than a faint glint of light from a
  telephonic headset as it was removed from a head and deposited on the  floor. 
  The headset, with an amplifier box near by, the wire across the  court, and a microphone cleverly concealed
  inside the municipal  building comprised a very modern eavesdropping device. 
  The secret listener to the conference in the Municipal Office  Building now left the hotel room, walked boldly
  through the hotel lobby  and out into the afternoon sunlight. 
  It was the young woman who had trailed and captured Dove Zachies.  She was smiling, unconcerned, as she
  made her way to the telephone  office and tried to get long−distance connections to New York. The  wires
  were still out. 
  The young woman made her way to a small private garage on the  outskirts of Powertown. She entered,
  locked the door behind her, and  opened the rumble seat of the large coupé which the garage held. She  brought
  out boxes and wires, began to hook them together and set them  up. 
  It was a radio telephone set, one in which portability had been  sacrificed somewhat for power. She began
  calling, "Mear, Mear, Mear!"  repeatedly, until a thin, dry−sounding voice answered. 
  "This is V. Venable Mear speaking," the voice said. "I am in New  York." 
  "Retta Kenn reporting," said the young woman. "I have seized Dove  Zachies and his usual shadow, Stupe
  Davin − " 
  "Why did you not use the telephone?" demanded the somewhat creaking  voice of V. Venable Mear. 
  "Wires out," said the girl. "I left Zachies bound securely and  gagged at the cabin of a man named Flagler
  D'Aughtell, along with a man  who seems to be Mort Collins, the assistant of D'Aughtell. Stupe Davin  I left in
  the heavy bushes by the road near the cabin − " 
  "What was Dove Zachies doing at D'Aughtell's cabin?" V. Venable  Mear demanded sharply. 
  "Looking" said the girl. "Just looking around, as far as I could  tell." 
  "We will take care of this Zachies matter later," advised Mear.  "What else have you learned?" 
  "I just tuned in on the city fathers," reported the young woman.  "They are puzzled and worried." 
  '"That is not news," snorted Mear. 
  "But this is," informed Retta Kenn. "They are going to call on Doc  Savage to solve the mystery." 
  "What!" exploded V. Venable Mear. "Are you sure?" 
  "Positively," replied the young woman. "The telephone wires are  down now, but as soon as they are repaired,
  Doc Savage will be started  on the trail of the Roar Devil and all of the rest of it." 
  "Oh, oh!" gasped V. Venable Mear. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter III. THE BRONZE MAN
  15
  
  "You said it, Retta Kenn agreed. "When the bronze man − " 
  "Who?" 
  "The bronze man," exclaimed the girl. "They call Doc Savage that.  When he tackles this, things are going to
  happen." 
  "Yes," V. Venable Mear agreed, "the Doc Savage angle is something  new." 
  Chapter IV. THE PERIL PUZZLE
  DOC SAVAGE was in his office−laboratory on the eighty−sixth floor  of a mid−town New York City
  skyscraper. 
  The bronze man was attired in an all−enveloping garment of gray  rubberized fabric, and his head was
  encased in what resembled a diver's  helmet made of glass. Clad in this hermetically sealed outfit, he was
  manipulating retorts and stills in which chemicals boiled and  precipitated, and from which clouds of
  evil−looking vapor arose. The  laboratory door was closed tightly and locked. 
  A buzzer whined a loud, shrill note. The bronze man ignored it. The  vapor from his chemicals had settled
  over his glass hood, and  occasionally he paused to wipe it away to permit clearer vision. At  such times, his
  features were distinguishable. 
  Several things were noteworthy about his visage. His skin was  fine−textured and of a somewhat unique
  bronze hue. His hair, straight  and fitting like a metal skullcap, was of a bronze slightly darker than  his skin. A
  woman would have called his face remarkably handsome. A man  would have noticed the tremendous sinews
  in his neck and the smooth  muscularity about his jaws. 
  Most striking of all, perhaps, were his eyes. They were like pools  of small gold flakes stirred by an uneasy,
  tiny wind. They were  startling, compelling eyes, and they seemed never at ease. 
  The buzzer whined again. The bronze man lowered the heat of an  electric still, then walked to a large
  instrument panel and threw a  switch. On the panel was a square of frosted glass. 
  The frosted glass lighted up not unlike a small motion picture  screen, showing a view of the corridor in front
  of the elevators. 
  Doc Savage studied the screen, which merely showed the reflection  of the corridor as carried by an
  arrangement of mirrors and tubes. 
  Into the atmosphere of the laboratory there came a queer, exotic  sound. It was undulating, not unmusical, and
  it ran up and down the  scale without adhering to any particular tune. It was not a whistle,  nor yet was it a
  vocal noise. A listener might have called it a  trilling note, if he thought of any description at all. 
  It was the sound of Doc Savage, small unconscious thing which he  made in moments of mental stress. 
  THERE was a man in the corridor. He was on his hands and knees, and  now he reached up and, with what
  seemed infinite difficulty, pressed  the buzzer button again. 
  The man was sagging in a little lake of scarlet. He coughed, and a  red spray flew threw his teeth. He was a
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter IV. THE PERIL PUZZLE
  16
  
  stocky man, and he was very  pale. 
  Doc Savage left the laboratory hurriedly. But he was careful to  lock the door behind him, and once in the
  library with its thousands of  scientific volumes, he turned on a strong electric fan and stood a  moment in its
  blast 
  He had been experimenting with poison gases, trying to develop a  counter−gas which would render them
  harmless, and enough of the vapors  might cling to recesses of his weird garment to kill one who came  close. 
  Satisfied that the fan blast had removed any lethal wisps, he went  on into the reception room with its
  furnishings of deep leather chairs,  massive inlaid table and huge safe. 
  The corridor door behaved in surprising fashion as he approached  it. While he was still ten feet from it, the
  panel, which bore no trace  of a knob or lock, opened. It was actuated by a device which a fairly  competent
  electrician could have explained − an electroscope equipped  with contacts and wired to relays and a hidden
  lock in the door. A bit  of radioactive metal which the bronze man carried actuated the device. 
  The man in the corridor was disclosed. The fellow still crouched on  all fours. He looked up. His eyes were
  unnaturally bright. 
  Doc Savage made no move to pass through the door. He stood well  within the reception room, and his
  flaked−gold eyes roved. Most of  their attention centered on the red pool on the floor. When he spoke,  it was
  with a voice of quiet, controlled power, and his tone showed no  emotion whatever. He might have been
  commenting on the ordinary  weather. 
  "Red ink does not make an altogether convincing substitute for  blood," he said. 
  The effect of that statement on the man on the corridor floor was  instant and violent. He jerked back on his
  haunches. His hand, which  had been near his coat, dived under that garment and came out with a  blue
  revolver. 
  The fellow had skill with guns. His weapon lipped flame and powder  noise when hardly clear of his coat. He
  came erect shooting with quick  precision. His gun was a type which held five cartridges. He fired four  of
  them. Then he stopped. His eyes seemed about to pop out of his head. 
  Doc Savage had not moved, nor showed any such surprise as might  have been expected. Nor had he been
  harmed. 
  The bullets had stopped in mid−air in front of him. Three had  flattened and bounced to the corridor floor. The
  fourth hung suspended,  and from it radiated a spider web design which showed what had  happened. There
  was a barrier of thick bulletproof plate glass inside  the door. 
  "Hell!" gritted the gunman, and lunged forward as if to find a way  around the protective plate. 
  Comparative gloom of the reception room made the glass wall almost  indistinguishable, but the gun wielder
  found it with his hands, then  lunged upward, hoping to find a space at the top. There was none. He  kicked the
  glass and cursed. 
  Doc Savage advanced. 
  The gunman, frightened now, swore, whirled and ran down the  corridor. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter IV. THE PERIL PUZZLE
  17
  
  DOC did not pursue him immediately, but spun back to the large  table which stood before the window. The
  inlaid top of this appeared  innocent, but the mosaic pieces were cunning push buttons. He thumbed  one of
  these. 
  When he whipped back into the corridor − circling the protective  barrier of glass in the proper direction − the
  gunman was not in sight.  He had not gone down the stairway, for that was blocked by a metal gate  which was
  kept locked. He must have taken an elevator. 
  Doc Savage listened. Usually, sighing noises made by the  swift−moving cables came from the elevator
  shafts. But now there was  silence. 
  The bronze man ran down the stairway, let himself through the gate  and continued his descent. On each floor,
  he examined the elevator  doors and listened. 
  Four stories down, he heard a banging from one of the shafts. Some  one in a cage was beating at the metal
  panels of the sliding doors.  Even as the bronze man watched, the metal sheet bent, tore loose. 
  A fist of unbelievable hugeness delivered the panel a few more  blows, then grasped the metal and tore it
  aside. A man crawled out of  the elevator cage, which had stopped below center, so that the safety  trip
  prevented the doors being opened. 
  The man would have weighed in excess of two hundred and fifty  pounds, and yet somehow managed to seem
  gaunt. He had a long face which  bore an expression of puritanical gloom. He looked at Doc Savage and
  seemed sad to the point of tears. 
  "What's going on?" he demanded in a voice something akin to the  rumble of a disturbed bear in his den. 
  "Gentleman tried to shoot me, Renny," Doc Savage told him quietly.  "He fled in an elevator. I pressed the
  button which cuts the current  off all the elevator cages, stopping them, and now I am hunting the car  which
  has the gunman in it." 
  "Holy cowl" Renny boomed gloomily. 
  "Renny" was Colonel John Renwick, world−famous engineer, one of Doc  Savage's five assistants. 
  Renny's expression, as he followed Doc Savage down the stairway,  was that of a man going to the funeral of
  his best friend. But it was a  peculiar characteristic of Renny's that, the more gloomy he looked, the  more
  pleased he was with events. 
  Nine floors down, Doc stopped. 
  "Listen!" he said. 
  Muffled profanity was coming out of an elevator shaft. It was the  voice of the gun wielder. 
  "FORTUNATELY, the current went off when his cage was between  floors," Doc Savage said. "He was
  trapped." 
  The sliding doors into the elevator shafts could be opened by a  metal hook of a device, one of which was kept
  in a niche on each floor.  Doc Savage got the doors apart. They could look down upon the grating  which
  formed a part of the cage roof. 
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  Chapter IV. THE PERIL PUZZLE
  18
  
  "Anaesthetic gas," Renny rumbled, and produced from an underarm  holster a weapon which resembled an
  overgrown automatic pistol, fitted  with a drum magazine. It was really a machine pistol capable of a
  tremendous rate of fire, a product of Doc Savage's inventive skill. 
  The pistol was carried under Renny's left arm, and under the right  was a padded case which held extra
  ammunition drums, painted in various  colors. Renny selected one marked with green paint. 
  "This one has slugs charged with a gas that'll make him unconscious  for about half an hour," he boomed
  grimly. 
  He aimed at the grilled cage top. The machine pistol made a sound  like a gigantic bullfiddle. 
  Twenty minutes later, they had the stocky would−be killer in the  eighty−sixth floor study, and were watching
  him give signs of returning  consciousness. 
  "Not a thing in his pockets," Renny rumbled. "You say you never saw  the guy before, Doc? I know blamed
  well I never saw him. Why should he  try to kill you?" 
  "That," Doc Savage replied, "is what we will try to find out." 
  The bronze man had brought from the laboratory an apparatus similar  in appearance to those employed in
  hospitals for the administration of  anaesthetics. Now, before the gunman entirely regained consciousness,  he
  fitted the face piece upon the fellow's features and tuned various  valves on the supply tanks. 
  Renny had seen the procedure before, and knew what it meant. 
  "Truth serum," he said. 
  "Administered in vaporized form," Doc Savage agreed. "The stuff  seems to be more dependable, if used in
  that manner." 
  The stocky man did not regain consciousness, in the true sense of  the word. He merely passed from the
  influence of the anaesthetic and  came under the spell of the serum. 
  Doc Savage began to put questions. Some of the replies were  coherent; others not entirely clear. 
  "Why did you try to kill me?" Doc demanded. 
  "Ten grand," the man mumbled. "Half of it in advance." 
  "Hired," Renny boomed. "And he got a good price, too. Only he  didn't get away with it." 
  "Who hired you?" Doc asked. 
  "Telephone," the man droned, his true consciousness unaware of what  he was doing. "Money − letter −  my
  mail box." 
  "Who hired you?" Doc persisted. 
  "Roar Devil, they call him," said the prisoner. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter IV. THE PERIL PUZZLE
  19
  
  Renny scratched his head with an enormous finger. "This sounds  scatterbrained to me." 
  "Who hired you?" Doc repeated for the third time. 
  The man mumbled something they could not understand, but finished,  "Roar Devil. Nobody knows more
  about the chief than that." 
  AGAIN and again, Doc Savage tried to get information from their  victim, only to get a repetition of what had
  been said previously.  Later, there were mouthings which surprised and puzzled them. 
  "Biggest thing − in history," the doped man rambled. "Millions in  it − every crook in country − whether they
  like it or not − police  helpless." 
  "Sounds like a pipe dream," Renny murmured. 
  When the effects of the serum began to wear off, Doc Savage  administered more. 
  "Got to get Dove Zachies's cache," their subject rambled. "Tie up  grifters in New York − make Zachies see
  reason − Doc Savage − to be  stopped." 
  Renny eyed Doc. "Ever hear of Dove Zachies?" 
  "Crook," the bronze man replied. "Rumored to be the brains behind a  large organization. I've been intending
  to give him some attention." 
  Their prisoner seemed to have divulged all he knew, for his  continued ramblings were only repetitions. After
  a time, he came out  from under the influence of the drug. He shut up promptly. To their  questions, he replied
  with profanity. 
  The telephone rang. It was the mayor of Powertown, who had finally  gotten connections over the repaired
  telephone wires. 
  "We are face to face with a rather fantastic menace," he told Doc  Savage, and went on to repeat substantially
  the facts which had come  out in the conclave of the city fathers in the Municipal Office  Building. 
  "We need the assistance of a man of your ability," his honor  finished. 
  "Have you heard any mention of an individual or thing called the  Roar Devil in connection with these
  mysterious earth tremors?" Doc  asked. 
  "No," said the mayor. "But I told you of the roaring sounds. They  are very strange." 
  "You want me to investigate this?" Doc asked. 
  "Exactly!" 
  "One of my five associates, Colonel John Renwick, will be in  Powertown within a few hours," Doc Savage
  said. 
  The mayor murmured, "But it might be better if you came personally  − " 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter IV. THE PERIL PUZZLE
  20
  
  "Later," Doc advised. "Colonel Renwick is one of the world's  leading engineers. You can depend on him." 
  The bronze man hung up. 
  Renny studied Doc gloomily. "How come?" 
  "You will go to Powertown," Doc told him. "I will remain in New  York, at least for a time, to see what turns
  up on this other matter."  He nodded at the stocky man who had tried to kill him. 
  "You think this fellow tried to kill you to keep you from looking  into the mystery at Powertown?" Renny
  demanded. 
  "Entirely possible," Doc told him. 
  RENNY made preparations for his departure. In the midst of them, he  paused and indicated their prisoner,
  who was now entirely out from  under the effects of the truth serum. 
  "What about this fellow?" Renny asked. "We've got all we can out of  him. What'll we do with him?" 
  "The thing we usually do with crooks," Doc said, "send them  upstate." 
  Renny said, "I'm going to fly up to Powertown." 
  "Good luck," Doc told him. 
  Chapter V. RENNY AND THE SIREN
  RENNY arrived in Powertown in a small, fast plane. He handled the  controls himself. The Powertown
  Municipal Airport was modern and  lighted, so that there was no difficulty about landing, although it was  well
  after sundown. 
  A taxicab took Renny directly to the Municipal Office Building. 
  Renny seemed to make quite a favorable Impression on the assembled  leaders of the town. As a matter of
  fact, he was a commanding figure,  and an interesting one. His enormous hands were especially striking.  And
  he could make a speech as effective as the mayor's. 
  In a businesslike session, Renny was furnished with all the  information available. It was not substantially
  greater than what had  been told over the telephone. 
  The two mysteriously afflicted engineers were brought in on  stretchers. Renny examined them. Such things
  were not his specialty. He  was completely baffled. 
  "This is something for Doc Savage," he said. "My job is to examine  those dams and learn whether they are in
  immediate danger of  collapsing. Too, those strange roaring noises interest me." 
  Renny requested an aërial photographic map of the region about  Powertown. Some one went for it. During
  the wait, there was more  conversation. 
  Because he wanted to think, Renny drew aside, seated himself in a  deep chair, leaned back and fixed his eyes
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter V. RENNY AND THE SIREN
  21
  
  on the ceiling. Almost at  once, he saw something. He did not realize immediately its  significance. 
  At first, he mistook what he had seen for a cobweb with light  shining on it. Then he realized it was far too
  long and straight for a  cobweb. Too, there were a pair of the tiny threads. 
  Wires! It was only the artificial lights and Renny's excellent  eyesight which had led to their discovery. Renny
  got up and pretended  to walk around the conference hall while he examined the wires. They  led from the
  huge, ornate chandelier in the center of the room to a  window at the rear. 
  Renny took up a position near the door and rapped a table loudly  until he had attention. 
  "Did you know someone is eavesdropping on you with a dictograph  device?" he demanded loudly, and
  pointed out the wires. 
  There was some excitement. In the middle of it, Renny ducked out,  ran around the block and concealed
  himself behind a parked car. He knew  the wires must run into some building at the rear of the hall, and if
  there was an eavesdropper, the individual would be fairly certain to  take flight. Renny did not have long to
  wait. 
  A young woman came out of a small hotel directly back of the  Municipal Office Building. She was in a great
  hurry. She hastened down  the street. 
  Renny followed her. He did it expertly, for he was an old hand at  this sort of thing. The young woman headed
  toward the residential  district. 
  Once, when he drew close to the young woman, Renny was absolutely  certain he heard her laughing to
  herself. It was genuine mirth, as if  she enjoyed the whole thing hugely. Renny also got a better idea of her
  appearance as she passed under a street light. She was an athletic  young woman, rather more than ordinarily
  attractive. Her frock looked  expensive, and she affected a close masculine cut of her dark hair. 
  Renny's quarry entered a small frame garage near the outskirts of  the town. Loitering outside, he could hear
  her voice murmuring, but  could not catch the words. 
  The young woman came out of the garage so unexpectedly that she  nearly caught Renny napping. He barely
  got behind a bush, where the  shadows were thick. She walked off rapidly. 
  Renny ran to the garage door. It was padlocked. He waited a little  − until the girl's footsteps died down the
  street. Then he took the  padlock in both his big hands and did something which would have amazed  an
  onlooker. He wrenched the lock off, hasp and all, using only the  strength of his huge hands. Fortunately, the
  screws holding the lock  had not been too large. 
  Inside the garage, Renny found a coupé. In the rumble seat  compartment of this was a portable radio
  transmitter−and−receiver. The  tubes were still quite hot. 
  BY a combination of good luck and fast running, Renny managed to  overhaul the young woman. He
  slackened his pace the instant he caught  sight of her ahead, and trailed her. 
  The mysterious young woman headed directly into the mountains. The  rugged country around Powertown
  had never been suited to cultivation,  so it was almost entirely woodland. The girl was evidently using a
  compass, the dial of which she occasionally illuminated with a  flashlight. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter V. RENNY AND THE SIREN
  22
  
  An hour later, Renny could see the great, moon brightened mirror of  Powertown's enormous main reservoir
  off to the left, and the young  woman ahead was going as strongly as ever. She was following a ridge. 
  They passed the site of the dam which had burst the previous  afternoon. On the floor of the valley, occasional
  lights moved. These  were undoubtedly searching−parties in quest of flood victims. 
  The moon disappeared and a haze obscured the stars, resulting in  rather intense darkness. Renny experienced
  no little difficulty in  trailing the girl silently. 
  The young woman came finally to a little−used mountain road. At the  side of this stood a gray sedan. She
  walked boldly into bushes near by,  and seemed surprised at not finding something there. 
  She drew a small automatic from her frock and became more alert.  Renny got close enough to hear her when
  she spoke disgustedly to  herself. 
  "So!" she snapped. "Some one found Stupe Davin and moved him." 
  She used her flashlight cautiously, apparently looking for  footprints. 
  "He was moved, all right," she announced to herself. "He would be  still asleep from that drug I gave him." 
  She sounded rather cheerful about it, as if some one had just  scored against her in a pleasantly exciting game. 
  She left the car and continued on through the thick, rugged  woodland. 
  RENNY first saw the cabin when it sprang out, a darksome sepulchre  of logs, in the glow of the girls
  flashlight. She must have stood still  for some time and listened, for she had halted, and Renny had halted
  also, and had waited so long that he had feared he had lost his quarry. 
  The girl entered the cabin boldly. Renny darted forward. He could  manage great silence for one of his bulk.
  He watched the girl through  grimy windows. She roved her flashlight beam, as if looking for  something or
  some one, and entered the room which had been a  laboratory. 
  Renny promptly scuttled into the outer room. He lifted several  books and stood them on end across the floor.
  Then he took up a  position to one side. 
  In the other room, the girl said disgustedly, "It looks as if I did  an afternoon's work for nothing." 
  Then she came back through the door. She did not cast the flash  beam on the floor. Her foot hit the first book.
  It upset, hit the next  book, and the whole string of them toppled over with a pattering sound. 
  Startled, the girl leaped backward. Renny was moving forward on his  toes. His, long arms gathered her in.
  His big right hand clamped over  her gun. 
  She surprised him. He had fought men, more times than he could  remember. Few of them had equaled this
  girl. She must have been an avid  exponent of physical culture. She knew something of jujitsu, too. She  kicked
  him and hit him with terrific force. They were both on the floor  before Renny got the gun, and that was
  something he would never brag  about, because he considered his own strength by no means ordinary. 
  "Holy cowl" Renny puffed, and got to his feet. "Talk about your  wildcats!" 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter V. RENNY AND THE SIREN
  23
  
  The girl was up like a shot and nearly demonstrated she could  outrun him. He caught her fifty yards from the
  cabin. She knocked him  down once, beautifully, something he would have sworn no woman could  do. He got
  her down on her face and held her there, a big hand pinned  against the back of her neck. 
  "What'd you come up here looking for?" he demanded. "Why were you  eavesdropping on that meeting in
  Powertown?" 
  "Nuts to you!" said the feminine fire−eater. 
  "We'll go back to the cabin," Renny said. "We got lots to talk  about." 
  The trip back to the cabin was one he did not soon forget. He tied  her wrists with his handkerchief. She broke
  the bonds and gave him a  marvelous black eye. It ended by his grabbing her hair with one big  hand and
  holding her out as far as he could and marching her along.  Even then, she managed to kick much of the hide
  off his shins. 
  "What a woman!" he said, not without admiration, as they entered  the cabin. "I didn't think they came like
  you." 
  Three men came out of the darkness within the cabin and pointed  guns at Renny and the girl. 
  RENNY was no fool. He rumbled savagely, released the girl and  lifted his arms. 
  "You big tramp!" said the girl, and aimed a swing at his good eye.  He ducked, took the blow on the forehead
  and looked stunned. 
  "Cut, Miss Kenn," said one of the gunmen. "We'll handle him now." 
  The girl glared at them. 
  "I don't know you!" she snapped. 
  "You're Retta Kenn, are you not?" asked the spokesman of the  gun−holding trio. 
  "Yes." She scowled. "But I never saw you before." 
  The other shrugged. "Such is fame." 
  The girl planted small fists on her hips. She was very mad, but she  seemed to be enjoying herself, regardless. 
  "What comes next?" she demanded. 
  "You can go back to Powertown and continue your good work," she was  informed. 
  She seemed surprised. "Just who are you, anyway?" 
  "Friends of yours," grunted the other. "Ain't you wise to that,  yet?" 
  Retta Kenn gasped, "You mean you work for − " 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter V. RENNY AND THE SIREN
  24
  
  "Eh−heh!" The man held up a warning finger. "No names, sweetness.  You just skip−back to Powertown.
  We'll handle the rest of this. You've  done a good night's work." 
  The girl, looked very puzzled. Then she left the cabin. 
  "Follow her," the spokesman ordered one of his men. "See that  nobody bothers her, and that she gets back to
  Powertown." 
  The men sidled out furtively after the pugilistic young woman. 
  Renny was searched − and relieved of his machine pistol, the drums  of cartridges, a heavy−bladed pocket
  knife, and somewhat over a  thousand dollars in currency which he had brought along for expense  money. 
  "You guys in Doc Savage's crowd really carry pocket change, don't  you?" queried the spokesman. 
  Renny studied the fellow. He was confident he had never seen the  individual before. The fellow was lean,
  neatly dressed and smoothly  shaven. His nails were manicured. He wore neat, metal−rimmed  spectacles. He
  looked like a conservative businessman. 
  "Are we supposed to be acquainted?" Renny demanded. 
  The other made a gesture of throwing things off his shoulders. 
  "Indirectly, perhaps," he said. "If we consider acquaintanceship in  the category of the tangible and the certain
  march of circumstances,  rather than a concrete expression of − " 
  "You sound like a guy I know," Renny growled. "Nobody understands  him when he talks." 
  "You mean the estimable William Harper Little−john, better known as  Johnny?" queried the other. "To tell
  the truth, we rather expected Doc  Savage instead of you. Johnny is the geologist, you know." 
  "So your crowd sent that guy to shoot Doc in New York?" Renny  hazarded. 
  The neatly clad man smiled and adjusted his spectacles. He did not  answer the question directly. 
  "By the way, what became of the, ah − messenger of death?" he  queried. 
  Renny looked very gloomy. "You won't see him again." 
  Then something happened which caused Renny's hair to all but stand  on end. Like an echo to his gloomy
  prediction about the New York  killer's fate, like a monster aroused and enraged by the statement, the  earth
  gave a violent shake. 
  RENNY was not a man easily scared. Yet he felt as if ice were in  his blood. Not because the earth shook.
  Because of the other thing that  happened − the uncanny thing. 
  The trembling of the cabin shook books off the shelves, and when  they hit the floor there was absolutely no
  sound. Renny was so stunned  by that phenomenon that he opened his mouth and swore. He did not hear
  himself. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter V. RENNY AND THE SIREN
  25
  
  Renny stamped his feet. He could not hear that. He yelled. He did  not hear his own voice. He did feel the
  tickle as his vocal cords  vibrated, and got a vibration against his eardrums, which he himself  could
  understand. 
  It was incredible. All sound had ceased. It was impossible to make  a noise. 
  Renny decided to try again, and opened his mouth and let out his  best roar. In the middle of the bawl the
  weird spell suddenly ended,  with the result that Renny all but deafened himself with his own  howling. He fell
  silent and looked blank. 
  All of his captors laughed. 
  "That guy would make a good understudy to the Roar Devil," one of  them said. 
  "Roar Devil!" Renny blinked. "Just what is this Roar Devil?" 
  The neat man smiled grimly. "Just what does the name suggest to  you?" 
  "Don't be funny!" Renny rumbled. 
  "Power!" snapped the other. "That's what it suggests. And very  fittingly, too, I will add. Power, such as no
  man has dreamed! And  wealth. Infinite wealth! Other people's wealth, it is true. But as  Bobby Burns did not
  say, 'wealth is wealth, for a' that.'" 
  "This don't make sense," Renny grumbled. 
  "Oh, yes it does, if you only knew," chuckled the other. "It makes  very good sense. You have just felt the
  Roar Devil at work, taking the  final steps that will crown him emperor of his realm. Or let us hope  they
  crown him." 
  "I'll crown somebody before I'm through with this nutty business!"  Renny promised. "Say, was that girl
  working for this Roar Devil?" 
  The neat man smirked. "Don't you ever draw conclusions from what  you see?" 
  "Was she?" Renny demanded. 
  "You will put your hands behind you," directed the other. "We are  going to tie them there." 
  Renny complied. It would have been insanity not to obey. They had  their guns cocked. 
  "Did you," he was asked as he was being tied, "ever hear of Dove of  Peace Zachies, or Dove Zachies, as he is
  called?" 
  Renny scowled. "Yeah." 
  "Has Doc Savage heard of him?" 
  "Yeah," Renny admitted. He was now bound tightly. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter V. RENNY AND THE SIREN
  26
  
  "Excellent," said the neat man. "Let us hope Doc Savage is still in  his New York headquarters. The Roar
  Devil now has business with him." 
  Chapter VI. A NIGHT FOR TRADING
  THE small, plump, innocent−looking man with the gray beard stood in  the doorway of Doc Savage's
  skyscraper headquarters. His hat was in his  hand; he looked very meek. 
  "I am Dove Zachies," he said. "May I come in?" 
  Doc Savage showed no surprise as he moved the barrier of  bulletproof plate glass aside and let Dove Zachies
  into the reception  room. 
  "I have seen men who looked less like crooks," the bronze man said. 
  Zachies was cheerful and frank. 
  "I know better than to try to deceive you," he said. "I am a  criminal in the eyes of the law, yes. But I have my
  own code of honor.  I smuggle on a large scale, yes. I think tariffs are too high. I was in  the liquor business
  during prohibition days. I did not believe in  prohibition. I smuggle aliens. This is a free country, and why
  keep  some out and let others in?" 
  "Did you come up here to argue about that?" Doc asked, without  emotion. 
  Zachies shook his head solemnly. 
  "I came to ask your help," he announced. 
  "My help?" 
  "Not for myself," Zachies denied hastily. "I ask your help for the  American public. Perhaps for the world." 
  "That sounds somewhat melodramatic," Doc Savage suggested. 
  Zachies became earnest, twisting his expensive hat in his hands. 
  "Have you heard of the Roar Devil?" he asked. 
  Doc Savage did not answer immediately, but moved over behind the  massive inlaid table and seated himself.
  With seeming  absent−mindedness, he rested a finger tip on the exquisite mosaic of  the table top. 
  "The Roar Devil," he said, "has already made one attempt to kill  me." 
  Zachies dropped his hat, and his rather characterless face  registered vast astonishment. 
  "Then the Roar Devil has marked you for death!" he exclaimed. "He  must have realized you were in his
  path!" 
  "His path to what?" Doc asked. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VI. A NIGHT FOR TRADING
  27
  
  "Some mammoth crime," Dove Zachies replied. 
  "I do not know what, and I hope you will believe me, even if that  does sound strange." 
  Doc Savage tapped an inlay in the table top with the tip of a  tendon−wrapped forefinger. His flake−gold eyes
  were steady on his  visitor. 
  "Just what sent you to me?" he asked. "It was not a love of  humanity, entirely." 
  Zachies managed to look injured, but he nodded. 
  "True," he said. "The Roar Devil asked me to merge my, ah −  organization with his own. I refused. Now he is
  trying to kill me." 
  "You met the Roar Devil?" Doc asked sharply. 
  "I did not," Zachies denied. "He was only a voice over the  telephone. A singing voice." 
  "Singing voice?" 
  "Exactly, Mr. Savage. And I can assure you that the singing of  words will completely disguise a voice. It did
  this one, at any rate." 
  "Have you any concrete assistance to offer?" Doc asked. 
  "I certainly have. The Roar Devil is now haunting the mountains  around Powertown, in upstate New York." 
  "How do you know that?" 
  Zachies leaned forward wearing an expression of intense  seriousness. 
  "This Roar Devil is a monster who can do weird things, Mr. Savage.  He bragged, when trying to enlist my
  aid, that he could destroy whole  sections of the earth's surface. He said he would demonstrate on a  small scale
  by shaking the earth around Powertown, so that the large  dams there would be destroyed. He is doing that
  now, to impress me with  his power. He is causing millions in damage and taking many lives, just  to show me
  what he can do. Now I ask you, does that not make this Roar  Devil a monster?" 
  DOC SAVAGE asked, "Have you investigated the situation at  Powertown?" 
  "I have," Zachies said promptly. "I was up there today − I mean,  yesterday. I and my secretary − bodyguard, I
  should say − were captured  by a very unusual young woman named Retta Kenn, who I am positive is  one of
  the Roar Devil's gang. 
  "Retta Kenn left us, probably while she went for more of the Roar  Devil's men, or to tell her chief she had
  taken us. But some of my men,  who had followed us, found us and released us. I was scared, let me  tell you. I
  came directly to you." 
  Doc Savage said nothing for some moments. His forefinger absently  stroked and tapped the inlay in the
  tabletop, as if keeping pace with  his thoughts. 
  "Do you know anything more?" he queried. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VI. A NIGHT FOR TRADING
  28
  
  "Only that I found a cabin with a young man in it who seemed  completely paralyzed or hypnotized or
  something," said Zachies. "The  cabin was owned by an inventor named D'Aughtell, and the young man was
  D'Aughtell's associate, Mort Collins. I got that information from  searching the cabin. I think the Roar Devil
  has seized D'Aughtell and  worked one of his spells on Mort Collins." 
  "What makes you think that?" 
  "The Roar Devil told me he could make a man into a living dead  person. That describes Mort Collins's
  condition." 
  Doc Savage worried the tabletop with his finger. 
  "You say the Roar Devil has a singing manner of disguising his  speech?" 
  "Exactly, Mr. Savage." 
  Doc gave the table several sharp taps. 
  "What about your cache, Zachies?" he demanded. 
  Zachies's mouth came widely open. He kept it open until he had put  a long, pale cigar in it. 
  "I don't get you," he said. 
  "Is the Roar Devil not after your cache?" Doc asked. 
  "How could he be," Zachies said promptly. "I haven't got a cache. I  don't even know what a cache is." 
  "A place where things are hidden," Doc supplied. 
  "I have nothing hidden," Zachies insisted. 
  Doc Savage studied him. The bronze man had been employing the  information secured from the fellow who
  had tried to shoot him, while  the latter was under the influence of the truth serum. 
  "I gather you are already after the Roar Devil," Zachies said at  last. 
  "Right." Doc told him. 
  Zachies turned to the door. "Then I shall go." He paused to toss a  card on the inlaid table. "There is my
  address. If you need the help of  myself or any of my, ah − gang, just call on us." 
  "Thank you," Doc Savage said with just a trace of dryness, and  escorted Zachies to the elevators. 
  IT was with considerable haste that the bronze man returned to the  reception room. He went directly to the
  inlaid table and tapped on the  particular bit of the inlay which he had been fingering previously. 
  A telegraph sounder clicked in response to the depressing of the  inlay. But it did the clicking many stories
  below, in the basement of  the skyscraper. The telegraph sounder was mounted in a resonator in Doc  Savage's
  basement garage. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VI. A NIGHT FOR TRADING
  29
  
  Two men were listening to the sounder, and from their expressions,  it was evident both understood the code. 
  In appearance, these men differed about as much as two individuals  could. One was a great, hairy fellow who
  came near bearing more  resemblance to a bull ape than to a human being. He had practically no  forehead, and
  a mouth which all but reached from ear to ear. He needed  a shave, and his clothing looked like that of a
  tramp. 
  The other man was slender, lean−waisted, and his clothing was the  ultimate in sartorial perfection. He carried
  a slender black cane.  "M−a−n i−s l−e−a−v−i−n−g n−o−w," translated the dapperly clad man,  listening to the
  sounder. "F−o−l−l−o−w h−i−m." 
  "You don't hafta read that to me, Ham," complained the apish man,  in a small voice that might have belonged
  to a child. "I learned to  telegraph before Harvard ever heard of you." 
  "Shut up, you accident of nature!" the other said unkindly. 
  The two of them ran for a car. The gorilla of a fellow swerved to  one side and grabbed up an animal which
  had been asleep on a small  mound of cloth. It was a pig, an incredibly homely member of the poker  family,
  with long legs, and ears that might have been meant for wings.  It was by one enormous ear that the animal
  was being carried. 
  The dapper "Ham" glared. "You're not taking that insect along!" 
  "Watch me," said the owner of the terrible−looking hog. "And if you  don't like it − swell!" 
  The two men traded throat−cutting looks. Then the nattily attired  one grew pale and gripped his cane with
  both hands, separating it at  the handle to disclose that it was in reality a sword cane with a  vicious−looking
  blade. He seemed on the point of having a fit. 
  "Something you ate?" demanded the homely one. 
  "My coat!" Ham gurgled. "That nasty hog was sleeping on my new  topcoat! Monk, you put him up to that!" 
  "The idea!" "Monk" sniffed. "I think more of this hog than to −  We  better get going!" 
  They dived into a small coupé, Monk carrying the pig by one  oversize ear. The coupé ran up an inclined drive
  and out onto the  street. 
  Anxiously, the two men strained eyes at the few pedestrians abroad  at this hour of the morning. It was the
  homely Monk who first picked up  Dove Zachies. Zachies was swinging jauntily along northward. 
  "There he is," Monk pointed out. 
  They followed Zachies. 
  "THROW that hog, you!" Ham commanded grimly, when they had covered  two blocks. 
  "Nix," Monk refused. "Habeas Corpus is a bloodhog. You know all  about bloodhounds, probably, but I'll bet
  this is the first bloodhog  you ever seen − " 
  "Ugh!" Ham choked. "You'll buy me a new topcoat." 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VI. A NIGHT FOR TRADING
  30
  
  "I'll put that in my will," Monk said. 
  The quarreling continued, and at points it reached a heat which an  unknowing observer would have been sure
  was to result in a fight. But  fireworks never quite came off. As a matter of fact, the quarrel had  been going on
  pretty continuously for years. The two were actually  friends in their peculiar way. 
  Ham now mentioned the name of the archaeologist and geologist of  Doc Savage's group − William Harper
  Littlejohn. 
  "Where was Johnny tonight?" he demanded. 
  "Spouting his big words to a bunch of tomb robbers up at the  Egyptian room of the museum," Monk said.
  "He should be due back at  headquarters about now." 
  Ham attempted to kick the pig, Habeas Corpus. 
  "Cut that out!" Monk gritted. 
  "I'll cut his tail off right back of his ears, if he don't stop  trying to chew on my shoes!" Ham snarled. 
  That quarrel lasted them until Dove Zachies, who had taken a  taxicab, alighted from his hack far uptown.
  Zachies was evidently  making sure that no single cab driver should take him all the way to  where he was
  going, because he flagged a second taxi. 
  That one took him up into Westchester County, where there were many  palatial estates. Zachies dismissed the
  hack, walked to the entrance of  an estate, one encircled by a tall stone fence, and let himself through  a
  massive iron gate. 
  Monk, Ham and the pig, Habeas, were close on his trail. Monk  carried a leather hand bag which he had taken
  from the coupé. 
  "We gotta get in there," Monk decided. "Let's climb that wall." 
  "Let us listen at the gate first," Ham suggested. 
  They crept forward. When very near the gate, they heard voices. One  was Dove Zachies, and the other
  probably the gatekeeper. 
  "Watch the gate closely," Dove Zachies was saying. "Things are  getting very tough. Never mind the wall. No
  one can climb over that,  because there is a fancy burglar alarm − wires strung on top of the  wall, so that if
  any one gets near them, they make a bell ring. It's  the latest thing, and it sure works." 
  "Nobody'll get by me," said a bull−like voice. 
  Monk and Ham withdrew a safe distance. 
  "Who wanted to climb the wall?" Ham asked sarcastically. 
  "Nuts to you," Monk told him. "How we gonna do this?" 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VI. A NIGHT FOR TRADING
  31
  
  Chapter VII. WATERLOO FOR TWO
  THE two men pondered in deep silence. 
  "We might," Ham suggested, "go up to the gate and pretend we had  lost our way. The guard might come out
  to point the correct road. Then  we could gang him." 
  "That guy didn't sound like a bird who would accommodate anybody  that much," Monk retorted. "We gotta
  do better than that." 
  There were a few clouds in the sky now. It was very dark. Cars,  moving swiftly on a distant highway, made
  long moaning noises. The  aroma of spring was in the air. The pig, Habeas, grunted softly. 
  "I'll kick your gizzard out, hog," Ham gritted. 
  "Hah!" Monk breathed. "An idea!" 
  "Treat it gently," Ham advised. "It's in a strange place." 
  Monk ignored that, and seized Habeas. He pointed the pig's long  snout at the gate. 
  "Bite 'em, pal!" he directed. "Go eat 'em up!" 
  Habeas trotted off. The night swallowed him completely. Then there  was silence, more of it than Monk had
  expected. The cars on the distant  highway seemed nearer, probably because the two men were straining  their
  ears in the night. 
  Ham said, "I might have known that hog − " 
  There was a stifled gasp of pain from the gate. A man stamped,  cursed, gasped again in pain. 
  Monk and Ham glided forward. 
  The guard was stamping around inside the estate, gritting  profanity. 
  "Ouch!" he exploded. "What is this thing? Hells bells! A hog!" 
  The next instant, the gate flew open. Habeas popped through, the  irate guard close after him. 
  It was doubtful if the guard ever knew what happened to him. Monk's  hard fist landed against his ear with the
  first swing. Ham caught him. 
  "Some hog," Monk said. 
  They listened for some minutes. There was no sign that the scuffle  had been heard by any one in the large
  house which they could  distinguish through the shrubbery and trees. 
  Monk carried the guard down the road, bound and gagged him in  businesslike fashion, left him, and returned.
  Ham was scratching one of  Habeas Corpus's big ears, but desisted hastily when he discovered Monk. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VII. WATERLOO FOR TWO
  32
  
  "I knew you'd come to like that hog," Monk declared. 
  "I was just taming him," Ham said. "I'm going to cut his head off  and have him served with fried eggs. I want
  him so I can catch him." 
  They crept through the shrubbery. The grass was close−cropped, the  bushes clipped so that there was not
  much danger of running into stray  branches. They found an open window. Both crawled through, after
  listening. 
  It was a sun room. Beyond it, they found a dark living room. Across  that was an open, lighted door. They
  could see through it, and without  getting too close could hear conversation coming through it. 
  The light came from a dining room. On the table stood bottles and  glasses. Seven men were seated, some
  smoking. 
  Zachies, at the head of the table, said, "I tell you, boys, I fed  this Doc Savage a sweet line of bull, and he
  lapped it up!" 
  ONE of the other men − none of them looked like a gentleman would  care to meet in a dark alley − said,
  "The bronze fellow has got the rep  of being slicker than grease." 
  "Oh, I used a technique," Dove Zachies chuckled. "You see, I told  just enough truth to make it sound right.
  And I gave him everything I  knew about the Roar Devil." 
  "You said you left out the V. Venable Mear angle," reminded another  of the men. 
  "Yeah." Dove Zachies leaned forward fiercely. "You know what I've  decided?" 
  "What?" 
  "I've decided V. Venable Mear is the Roar Devil." Zachies leaned  back and nodded vehemently. "That girl,
  Retta Kenn, is obviously  working for the Roar Devil. And she had a telegram from this V. Venable  Mear,
  directing her to grab me. Don't that kinda make it look like the  Roar Devil is V. Venable Mear?" 
  "Just who is V. Venable Mear, Dove?" a man queried. "I don't make  the name." 
  "Darned if I know who he is," said Dove Zachies. "But we're gonna  find out. Bring me the telephone
  directory, somebody. Let's see if he's  in there." 
  Some one interrupted, "But if V. Venable Mear is the Roar Devil,  why not tell Doc Savage?" 
  Dove Zachies laughed. 
  "Because, if we can grab the Roar Devil, we can take over his game,  see?" he pointed out. "It's big. The
  biggest thing in history, I'm  telling you!" 
  "You ain't half smart," some one said, knowingly. 
  "Get me the telephone directory," ordered Zachies. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VII. WATERLOO FOR TWO
  33
  
  A man got up and walked into the room where Monk and Ham stood. He  did it quickly, and there was no
  time for them to retreat. The only  thing they could do was step hastily into darkened corners. 
  Monk, by the worst of luck, found he had taken up a position almost  beside the telephone stand. The man
  from the other room marched up to  the stand, bent over it and fumbled for the directory. Monk almost  heaved
  a sigh of relief. The other was not going to see him! 
  Then the man hit Monk in the stomach. It was a terrific blow. It  would have sent most men to the hospital. It
  made Monk roar like a  lion. 
  Monk hit the man who had struck him. The fellow was knocked out  instantly, lifted and carried backward by
  the blow. He fell flat on his  back in the door. 
  Bawling irately, Monk charged after him. The apish chemist scooped  up a chair, and as he came through the
  lighted door, threw it at the  chandelier. The lights went out in a jangling of glass, a popping of  bulbs and a
  sizzling of blue electric flame. 
  Straight into the room Monk charged. He seized the table, ran it  across the floor and pinned at least three men
  against a wall. He gave  the table a final shove, which must have all but cut the victims in  two. 
  There was a man underfoot. Monk jumped up and down on him. Some one  fired a gun. Monk had gotten a
  bottle off the table. He threw it at the  gun flash, and was rewarded by an end−of−the world groan. 
  Monk jumped up and down, bawled wrathfully, and charged wildly  through the darkness in hopes of
  encountering another victim. A wall  stopped him painfully. 
  "You missing link!" Ham shouted from the other room. "Get out of  here while you can!" 
  Monk made one more foray in the darkness, found no one, and raced  after Ham. They tumbled through the
  window together and set out across  the grounds, the pig at their heels. 
  "Idiot!" Ham gritted. "That was a crazy thing to do!" 
  "That guy hit me in the place where I put all my food," Monk  growled. "I value that spot." 
  "We've got information for Doc," Ham gasped. "That stuff about V.  Venable Mear − " 
  "Blazes!" Monk howled. "What's this!" 
  "This" was the figure of a woman. She had flashed up ahead of them  and was racing madly for the gate. 
  THE fleeing girl cast a wild glance over her shoulder. It was  doubtful if she could see much in the darkness.
  Only the fact that  there was an electric light at the gate permitted Monk and Ham to  discern her. 
  She reached the gate, whipped through, then slammed the heavy  portals. 
  "Hey!" Monk bawled. "Don't do that! We're clearing out of here,  too!" 
  The girl heard. She stopped, wheeled, and began fighting the gate.  She was trying to get it open for them. But
  the lock was of a spring  variety which foiled her. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VII. WATERLOO FOR TWO
  34
  
  Behind them, a submachine gun emitted a ripping volley. Monk and  Ham hurled themselves flat and began to
  crawl. They could hear slugs  snarling through the surrounding shrubbery. 
  Then the bullets began digging at the stone wall and clanging on  the gate. The girl did the only safe thing.
  She wheeled and fled. 
  Brilliant floodlights came on. These were located along the wall,  and placed so cleverly that every square
  yard of the estate was  lighted. 
  Dove Zachies and the remnants of his gang charged forward. 
  "Jig's up!" Monk groaned. 
  Monk and Ham were both lying in plain view, now that the lights  were on. They both had machine pistols.
  Using them would have been  inviting suicide. 
  Dove Zachies came up, glaring. He had evidently familiarized  himself with Doc Savage's organization,
  probably from such newspaper  pictures as had been printed. 
  "Monk and Ham, they call you," he snarled. Then he waved an arm.  "Get that woman!" 
  Men raced off. 
  Ten minutes later, they were all back. 
  "She got away," one imparted. "Had a car waiting down the road." 
  "Ahr−r−r!" muttered Dove Zachies 
  "Who was she, Dove?" a man queried. 
  "Retta Kenn," said Dove Zachies. 
  MONK and Ham were taken into the house. The guard they had  overpowered, bound and gagged was found
  and released. Every one sat  around listening anxiously for some evidence that the shooting had  moved a
  neighbor to call the police. Nothing happened. 
  "I bought this place because it was isolated," Dove Zachies sighed.  Then he came over to Monk and Ham,
  both of whom were now secured with  bright new handcuffs. 
  "So Doc Savage didn't swallow my line as well as I thought?"  Zachies growled. "Just how much does Savage
  know?" 
  "I can't hear you," Monk squeaked. "I'm kinda deaf at times." 
  That threw Dove Zachies into a spasm of rage, the violence of which  puzzled Monk, who had no way of
  knowing as yet that Zachies had been  taken in the previous day when Retta Kenn put over a very good
  pretense  of being deaf. 
  Zachies put out his rather weak−looking jaw. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VII. WATERLOO FOR TWO
  35
  
  "Know what I'm gonna do with you two bright boys?" he gritted. 
  "I ain't a mind reader, either," Monk advised. 
  "I'm gonna use you to persuade Doc Savage to really go to town on  this Roar Devil," Zachies advised. 
  Monk squinted small eyes at him. "Yeah? How?" 
  "I'm gonna call up Doc Savage and yell over the telephone that the  Roar Devil is attackin' my estate here." 
  "Then what?" Monk asked curiously. 
  "Then I'm gonna shoot you two," Zachies advised. "I'll tell Doc  Savage that the Roar Devil did it. What do
  you think of that? It'll  make Doc Savage real anxious to get the Roar Devil, won't it? It'll  stir him up, won't
  it?" 
  "It'll stir him up," Monk admitted. 
  Dove Zachies walked over and picked up the telephone. 
  Chapter VIII. THE DEAD MAN'S VOICE
  THE telephones in Doc Savage's office were connected to buzzers  which had various tones. The one which
  sounded now was unusually  shrill, something resembling the prolonged squeak of a mouse. 
  An extremely tall and amazingly thin man in Doc Savage's reception  room moved toward the instrument.
  This man's appearance was rather  startlingly like that of a skeleton with a very thin coating of skin  and flesh.
  He was Johnny. 
  "The communication may not be of memorabilian consequence," he said  solemnly. 
  "I will take it," Doc Savage said. 
  The bronze man swung over and scooped up the telephone, which was  one of a bank of several, all
  numbered. 
  "I wish to speak with Doc Savage, please," said a voice over the  wire. 
  Doc Savage did not change expression, but into the room, for the  briefest of moments, came the low, exotic
  trilling sound which was his  own peculiar characteristic, the sound which he made in moments of  mental
  excitement. 
  The words over the telephone had come in a peculiar singing manner  of delivery. And Dove Zachies had said
  this was the method used by the  Roar Devil to disguise his speech. 
  "This is Doc Savage," the bronze man admitted. 
  There followed a pause of such duration that it seemed the voice of  the Roar Devil was not going to sound
  again. Then singsong words came  out of the receiver. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VIII. THE DEAD MAN'S VOICE
  36
  
  "Please do not interrupt what I have to say, and listen carefully,"  directed the voice. "This is the Roar Devil. I
  have your man, Renny. He  is unharmed, except for minor bruises. Nor will he be harmed if you  follow
  certain instructions." 
  Doc Savage took the receiver away from his ear enough for the bony  Johnny to hear the words. Johnny
  nodded, backed away and picked up  another instrument, where he promptly began trying to trace the call. 
  "Dove Zachies is the man I really want," continued the Roar Devil. 
  THERE was a slight pause after that, as if for emphasis. 
  "Get Zachies, and I will trade your man Renny for him," the Roar  Devil went on. "I will know when you have
  received Zachies. I have  sources of information. I will then get in touch with you and arrange  for the trade.
  Now, you will want proof that I have Renny." 
  There was a short silence. Then Renny's booming voice, angry and  unmistakable, came out of the receiver. 
  "I know about this trade he's trying to make, Doc," said Renny's  roar. "Tell him to go to blazes! But watch
  your step! And don't kid  yourself that this Roar Devil isn't dangerous!" 
  The wire rattled as the connection was broken. 
  Doc Savage, still holding the receiver, spun on gaunt Johnny. 
  "Get it?" 
  Johnny said over the other telephone, "Thank you immensely," and  hung up. 
  "Supermalagorgeous," he told Doc Savage. "Thanks to the previous  arrangements we made with the
  telephone company, we got results." 
  "The call came from where?" 
  "From a place in Westchester County." 
  Doc Savage's trilling, like the note of some exotic tropical bird,  came out briefly. It persisted, a delicate
  vibration almost too  nebulous for the ear to catch, then faded into infinity. 
  The bony Johnny looked puzzled. Doc explained. 
  "That address," said the bronze man, "Is Dove Zachies's country  estate." 
  "Dove Zachies − I'll be superamalgamated! In−deed I will!" 
  Doc Savage said, "Come on!" 
  A policeman stopped them once as they drove north. He was a rookie,  and the special license plates on Doc
  Savage's lean, gloomy−colored  roadster meant nothing to him, he said. Making eighty miles an hour on  a
  boulevard did. The license plates meant something, too, after he  called his district chief. He was all apologies
  as he let them go. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VIII. THE DEAD MAN'S VOICE
  37
  
  Doc Savage and Johnny left the somber roadster some distance from  their destination, walked a hundred
  yards and found the coupé in which  Monk and Ham had ridden. 
  Johnny looked the car over and said, "An unpropitious omen." 
  Doc Savage did not comment 
  "There is a possibility that Dove Zachies is the Roar Devil, and  trying to cover it up," Johnny said. 
  "He came to me and said he wanted me to get the Roar Devil," Doc  said. "He would hardly sic us on
  himself." 
  "There are ways of condoning that angle," Johnny said. "He might  have phenagled to steer suspicion from
  himself." 
  "It may come out in the wash," Doc told him. 
  The gate to Dove Zachies's pretentious estate was open. 
  There was a dead man inside the gate. 
  THE dead man sat with his back to a tree. He had both hands clamped  over his middle, and the hands were
  red with a redness that had leaked  through them and had soaked the man's legs and puddled between them. 
  A gun and a flashlight lay near the man. The gun was a Luger, and  the man had a Luger holster under his
  coat. There was also a worn place  at his belt where the flashlight had dangled from a snap and ring.  There
  was a package of French cigarettes in the dead man's pockets, and  French cigarette butts about the gate. Some
  of the stubs had been there  for days. 
  "Watchman," Doc Savage said. "Do not try to move him. They used a  knife on him and he's about ready to
  fall apart." 
  Bright lights inside the house made it look big and white. The  front door was off its hinges. Two of the front
  windows were broken  out. 
  There was another dead man inside the door, and he had been shot.  The stitched pattern on his soggy chest
  indicated a machine gun. 
  In the dining mom, they found two coats hanging neatly on the back  of a chair, Johnny looked at them. He
  used very small words when he  spoke. 
  "Ham's coat," he said, and pointed at the other garment. "This one  is Monk's. Look at the manner in which
  Monks is torn. They had trouble.  Probably they were captured." 
  Doc Savage went on through the house, opened a door, and was  unexpectedly confronting the cloudy night,
  although the door had opened  into what had once been a kitchen. The whole rear of the house was  gone,
  blown away. 
  The bronze man surveyed the damage appraisingly, noting that the  floor had been blown downward in a
  manner which indicated the explosion  had occurred inside the room. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VIII. THE DEAD MAN'S VOICE
  38
  
  "Grenade," he said. "A large one." 
  "I'll be superamalgamated!" Johnny made vague gestures, and  fingered the monocle which dangled from a
  ribbon and had been stowed in  the handkerchief pocket of his coat. "This explosion! It must have been  heard
  fifteen miles away!" 
  He glanced about, then indicated numerous empty cartridges. 
  "Shooting and no one heard it and gave an alarm," he said. "Ditto  for the explosion. That is strange." 
  Johnny did not ordinarily speak this many sentences without at  least one which could not be translated
  without a dictionary. Possibly  that was because his big words were a form of showmanship, and he knew
  better than to try to impress Doc Savage. 
  Doc Savage replied nothing, but went back into the dining room. He  turned off the lights. 
  From a pocket, the bronze man drew a device which might have been a  miniature camera, except that the
  large lens was almost black in hue.  He flicked a switch on the side of this. A faint singing sound came  from
  the apparatus, a note which might have been made by a high−pitched  vibrator. 
  Doc pointed the instrument about the room. It gave off no visible  light. But several times, objects glowed
  weirdly under its spell. Two  stray aspirin tablets, for instance, became small phosphorescent spots. 
  Then a sentence in writing leaped out distinctly. 
  DOC SAVAGE went closer to the writing with the apparatus − it was  merely a lantern for the projecting of
  so−called "black light," or  ultra−violet rays, of a wave length invisible to a normal human eye. 
  The writing was in secret chalk, a chalk which took advantage of  the property, well known to scientists,
  which many substances have of  phosphorescing, or glowing, when exposed to the black light. The
  appearance of this chalk was innocent, and it left a mark almost  impossible to detect by ordinary methods.
  Doc Savage's aides each  carried it. 
  The letters were big and distinctive. 
  "Monk's handwriting," Doc said. 
  The bronze man and Johnny studied the words: 
  ZACHIES THINKS V. VENABLE MEAR IS ROAR DEVIL. 
  ALL STILL A MYSTERY. 
  WE GOT GLOMMED. 
  "He has a quaint way of saying he and Ham were taken prisoner,"  Johnny said dryly. "Wonder what
  happened after he wrote that." 
  Doc Savage began going over the house with more care. Bullets had  made holes in the windows or taken the
  glass out entirely. A man had  bled a little lake in one room. Three times the bronze man found  bullets which
  were flattened and mutilated as if they had encountered  bulletproof vests. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VIII. THE DEAD MAN'S VOICE
  39
  
  The ultra−violet lantern was still in use. On the basement floor,  it unearthed another message: 
  FIREWORKS − ROAR DEVIL, I THINK. 
  ZACHIES GOING KILL US AND BLOW. 
  There was no more at that spot. Johnny was a tower of gloom as they  continued their hunt. Adjoining the
  cellar was a semi−basement garage.  In front of the door, as if he had been dropped there while the door  was
  opened − the door had been smashed − was written: 
  FRYING PAN INTO − ROAR DEVIL GOT US. 
  Johnny gasped delightedly, "So Zachies did not kill them, after  all. Probably he did not have time." 
  Doc Savage moved into the garage. 
  "This seems to be a continued story," he said, and pointed. 
  Glowing letters came out under the ultra−violet lamp: 
  ROAR DEVL OVERHEARD SAYING HE USED TELEPHONE RECORD WITH − 
  That must have been interrupted, for it was unfinished. 
  "What could he have been trying to say?" Johnny pondered aloud. 
  "Probably he was trying to tell me he had overheard enough to know  that the Roar Devil employed a
  telephone record with Renny's voice on  it when he called me to offer Renny in exchange for Dove Zachies,"
  Doc  Savage said. 
  Johnny started as if he had been kicked. 
  "I'll be super − you knew that?" he exploded. 
  "You have heard phonographic transcriptions played over the radio,"  Doc told him. "There is a certain
  unmistakable scratching made by the  needle. Probably the Roar Devil did not think it would be strong enough
  to detect over the telephone." 
  On the other side of the garage was the last word from Monk: 
  ZACHIES ESCAPED. 
  ROAR DEVIL TAKING US. 
  INVESTIGATE V. VENABLE MEAR. 
  Johnny commented on the situation when they were running toward  their car to go back to New York City. 
  "It does not seem that Dove Zachies is the Roar Devil, after all,  does it?" 
  Doc Savage did not voice any answer. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VIII. THE DEAD MAN'S VOICE
  40
  
  THE telephone directory had it: 
  MEAR, V. VENABLE, cml pscyt, 1 Merving 
  Alley, NOrth 8−4001. 
  Johnny absently passed his monocle over the printed line. The  monocle was unwearable, being a magnifying
  glass of no small power.  Johnny used a glass often in his profession of archeologist, and  carried it as a
  monocle for convenience. 
  "That abbreviation 'cml pscyt' must mean − " 
  "Criminal psychologist," Doc Savage completed for him. "That sounds  interesting." 
  "Number One Merving Alley," Johnny said. "Five minutes should see  us in that section of the metropolis." 
  An outsider might have mistaken Merving Alley for just what its  name implied, a dump. It looked the part,
  except possibly that the  buildings were too clean, being whitewashed, and the pavement was very  sanitary.
  No native New Yorker would have made the error, however. 
  Merving Allay was "class." Three of the world's leading artists  lived there, some painters of equal
  importance, and a famous  international banker. Those old buildings had once been stables, but  the interiors
  had long since been remodeled at the expenditure of  several million dollars. The residents were persons who
  found  themselves bored by the ordinary, and who had money enough to go in for  the extraordinary. 
  Number One was a whitewashed box of bricks which was absolutely  windowless. As far as could be seen
  there was only one small door, and  that of heavy timbers. It was a barn door. 
  "How do we conduct our camisado," Johnny queried. "Rush the place?" 
  "The gentleman might not know we are interested in him," the bronze  man reminded. "Why add the
  information to his worries. The Chinese have  a proverb: 'When there is rain without clouds meeting the eye,
  the  wisest man may get wet'" 
  "I see," said Johnny. "We rain on him, but we don't cloud up." 
  It was not yet dawn. The corner street lamp was furnishing them  enough light to study the square house. 
  "An alley at the back," Doc reminded. 
  In the alley, the bronze man drew a silk cord, a grappling hook  attached to the end, and tossed it upward after
  a moment of careful  calculation. The grappling hook was collapsible, and covered with soft  rubber, so that
  the noise it made scarcely reached their ears. It must  have hung over the edge of the roof. Doc pulled, testing.
  It hung. 
  He went up. 
  Johnny mounted next. He found the bronze man looking down through  an enormous turret of a skylight.
  Johnny hurried over. He looked down. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter VIII. THE DEAD MAN'S VOICE
  41
  
  At first it seemed that he was peering into a pool of soft flame,  then his eyes accustomed themselves and he
  could make out a room, done  in red from top to bottom. There was nothing but red in the room. Even  the
  paper which lay on the great desk in the middle of the fantastic  study was red. 
  Johnny drew back. A peculiar expression was on his long, bony face.  He blinked his eyes slowly. 
  "Strange place," he mumbled. "Sort of a phantasmagoria in  erubescence − " He trailed his voice off and
  scratched his head. He  smiled slightly. He was not a man who smiled often. Suddenly, he threw  back his
  head. 
  He emitted a deafening peal of laughter and fell flat on his face. 
  The next instant, Doc Savage did almost exactly the same thing. 
  Neither man moved after he had fallen. 
  Chapter IX. THE DEVILS COLLIDE
  THE man looked ageless. Rather, he looked as if he had gotten old  to a point where he no longer showed the
  years. His skin was like  sandpaper from which hard rubbing had erased the sand. His eyes had no  particular
  color. They might have been little cellophane bags with  unclear water in them. 
  He opened his mouth when he breathed, and the teeth that showed  were so strong and white−looking that
  they were obviously artificial.  Yet he was not stooped very much. Nor was his step feeble. 
  He had a head of amazing bigness above the ears. It was white and  hairless and somehow made one think of a
  tremendous skull. When he came  into the red room, the red light somehow gave him the look of a devil. 
  He said, "You two have been unconscious about half an hour, if that  interests you." 
  His voice was a thing of unusual beauty. It was an operatic voice. 
  "Thank you immeasurably," said the bony Johnny. 
  Doc Savage said nothing. 
  They were seated on chairs, stout steel chairs, and they were held  by handcuffs to the chairs. Doc Savage
  could break ordinary handcuffs.  He had not broken these. He had tried. 
  Doc and Johnny had recovered their senses some ten minutes before. 
  "It is hardly necessary to explain that I did this because I found  you prowling on the roof of my house," the
  ageless man announced. "My  burglar alarms, and very excellent they are, too, showed you there." 
  He waited, apparently for the two men to say something, but they  were silent, and he rubbed his hands
  together and smiled. The skin on  his hands looked so dry that it was strange that it did not crackle,  seemingly. 
  "There are tiny gas vents in the roof," he said. "The gas is both  colorless and odorless. But I believe that you,
  Doc Savage, are versed  enough in chemistry to have already guessed the nature of the gas. You  see, I
  recognized you the instant I came near you. Unfortunately,  however, that was not until after you were
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter IX. THE DEVILS COLLIDE
  42
  
  senseless." He bowed to  Johnny. "You are William Harper Littlejohn. I am indeed glad to meet  such a
  learned man." 
  Johnny gave him only a steady stare. 
  The ageless man bowed. 
  "I am V. Venable Mear," he said. "I presume you came to see me. The  roof of my house is of no use in
  gaining the roofs of other houses, for  it sets apart. So I presume you were on my roof to see me." 
  He looked at them expectantly as he paused, and when they did not  answer, smiled, shook his head and
  continued. 
  "Indeed, I am glad to meet you," he said. "I am a man of the  sciences myself, although I have never put my
  knowledge to spectacular  uses. I am a criminologist. I study crime and criminals. Study them,  you
  understand, to devise methods of combating them." 
  "You," Johnny rapped suddenly, "are the Roar Devil!" 
  V. Venable Mear smiled, rubbed his hands and seemed about to bow,  when the door snapped open. 
  Retta Kenn came in. 
  "There's the devil to pay!" she snapped. "Dove Zachies is outside  with a gang. He thinks you are the Roar
  Devil. He's going to get you!" 
  THE girl was excited, but certainly not scared. She gave the  impression of being rather delighted about the
  whole thing. 
  There was a gun in V. Venable Mear's hand. Just how it had gotten  there was a mystery. He was very fast. 
  "Tell me about it," he suggested, as if there was all the time in  the world. 
  "I went to Dove Zachies's place in Westchester to pick up his  trail, as you directed," said Retta Kenn. "I saw
  Dove Zachies seize Doc  Savage's two men, Monk and Ham. I saw the Roar Devil's men attack  Zachies and
  drive him away and capture Monk and Ham." 
  "Did you see the Roar Devil?" V. Venable Mear demanded. 
  "No," She shook her head. "He was not with his men. I overheard  enough to know that. Then Zachies
  escaped, and I trailed him and  learned he was coming here. I tried to beat him. His men were getting  out of
  cars at the corner as I entered the house." 
  "You should have called me for orders," snapped Mear. 
  "Why?" countered the girl. 
  "Because I would have had you follow the Roar Devil's men," Mear  informed her. 
  "You told me you wanted Dove Zachies." 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter IX. THE DEVILS COLLIDE
  43
  
  "My client wants Zachies," corrected V. Venable Mear. "I have taken  a personal interest in this affair. For
  that reason, I want the Roar  Devil." 
  "I'm no mind reader," said the girl. 
  V. Venable Mear rubbed his hands together. No sound had as yet come  from the street door. 
  Mear turned on Doc Savage suddenly. 
  "Can you talk?" he asked. 
  "On occasion," Doc Savage admitted, without emotion. 
  "Who is the Roar Devil?" Mear demanded. 
  Doc Savage made no answer. 
  "What is he after?" Mear persisted. 
  Doc returned him silence. 
  Mear sighed. "I fear I do not have a trustworthy face. It must be  my age. It is hard for an old man to look
  honest." 
  The girl said dryly, "And while we stand here singing songs, our  enemies gather without. Brother, you'd
  better look in your hat for  rabbits." 
  V. Venable Mear gave no indication of having heard her. He looked  at Doc. 
  "You think I'm a crook, don't you?" he demanded. "An old shyster  with a lot of words − Isn't that what you
  think?" 
  "You know what the Roar Devil is after, don't you?" Doc Savage  asked. 
  "I do," said V. Venable Mear. 
  "You know why he and Dove Zachies are fighting," Doc asked. 
  "I do," admitted Mear. 
  "And you know who the Roar Devil is," Doc announced. 
  "I do," said Mear. "At least, I have an idea that will hold water." 
  "I think you are the Roar Devil," Johnny put in suddenly. 
  V. Venable Mear laughed. He came over and unlocked Doc Savage and  Johnny. 
  While Doc and Johnny were moving arms and legs to restore  circulation, V. Venable Mear moved over to the
  girl, stood with his  back turned so that his lips could not be read, and said something into  her ear in a voice so
  low they did not catch even the swishing of the  whisper. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter IX. THE DEVILS COLLIDE
  44
  
  The girl walked rapidly toward the rear of the house and was lost  to sight. 
  "Come," V. Venable Mear said. 
  He led Doc and Johnny to the front door and opened it. 
  The street was full of motionless bodies. 
  "I'LL be superamalgamated!" Johnny exploded. 
  "Exactly," said V. Venable Mear. "You see, I kept you in there  talking until the gas blew out of the street. It
  was the same kind of  gas which overcame you, and there is not much wind, so it took a little  time.
  Incidentally, I have always wondered how the trick would work.  Quite effective, don't you think?" 
  Johnny bent a studious stare on V. Venable Mear. "You are a  metempirical personality," he said. 
  V. Venable Mear smiled, rubbed his hands. "On the contrary, I am a  man who makes his living by studying
  criminals and ways of combating  them. This gas and the method of its distribution is my invention. I  shall
  sell it to banks. Yes, I shall put on quite on advertising  campaign. It is against my nature to seek publicity, but
  I think I  shall now call in the newspaper reporters. This should get me more  advertising than I could buy with
  a million dollars." 
  Johnny looked at Doc. "I can't make this fellow out." 
  V. Venable Mear smiled more widely and executed a sharp bow. 
  "May I introduce myself again as the man − " 
  V. Venable Mear screamed and fell down. 
  Simultaneously, or almost so, there was a sound as if some one had  whistled, and close on the heels of that, a
  lip−popping noise. Tumbling  after that, so close that the noises blended, came the whooping echoes  of a shot. 
  Johnny started, "I'll be super − " 
  Doc Savage knocked him down. Down and back, through the door into  the house. And the bronze man
  followed him, bending over and getting  the still−falling Johnny by the shoulders and dragging him on into the
  house. 
  During that split−second interval, a thunder of shots rolled in the  street and bullets made unearthly and
  hideous noises as they mutilated  the door and the door jamb. 
  V. Venable Mear was screaming − and rolling. There seemed to be  blind insanity to his rolling, for it had
  carried him out in the  street. 
  Johnny made something like a move to go after him. 
  "You couldn't make it," Doc told him. "Nobody could, unless they  were in a tank. And even then, I wouldn't
  be so sure." 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter IX. THE DEVILS COLLIDE
  45
  
  They could see two of the flashing guns. They were on top of a  dwelling across the street. There were at least
  a dozen other guns  going. 
  Doc Savage and Johnny moved backward. There was a passage inside  the door, and it sheltered them. 
  They stood there until two men ran into view. They wore clumsy  bullet proof capes, steel helmets, and kept
  their heads down to protect  their faces as much as possible. They worked like soldiers making a  charge. 
  The two seized V. Venable Mear. 
  "Be sure he don't get hurt!" one of the men gasped. 
  They dragged Mear away. 
  Doc and Johnny retreated. There was nothing more for them to do  here. They could hear shouting, some one
  ordering a charge on the  house. 
  Johnny had a machine pistol. He clipped a drum of tear−gas bullets  into it and emptied them into the street.
  That held off the assault for  a while. 
  They found the rear door. It was open, inviting. The surroundings  were very dark. Doc Savage stopped
  Johnny before he could go out.  "Wait," Doc advised. 
  He went back. 
  "Young lady!" he called. 
  There was no answer from Retta Kenn, no sound to indicate that she  was in the house. 
  There was a kitchen, and from a shelf the bronze man got several  ripe tomatoes. Back at the rear door, he tore
  off bits of the tomatoes  and tossed them carefully, one piece at a time. They were soft, and  because they did
  not roll after they fell, they sounded much like  footsteps. 
  A revolver set up a loud bang−bang−bang! Bullets chopped and  snarled where the tomato fragments had
  followed. 
  Johnny let a bullfiddle moan out of his machine pistol. A man cried  out. His body fell heavily. There was no
  other sound from the alley,  but much yelling around in front. 
  Doc Savage and Johnny were not interfered with as they ran away. 
  They loitered in the vicinity. The raiders gathered up Dove  Zachies's men, who were unconscious in the
  street. They did not get  Dove Zachies. They wanted him. There was much shouted urging to find  his body,
  but they went without it. 
  They took V. Venable Mear. 
  Cars were waiting, big fast machines which boomed into the street  and picked up every one. A radio police
  patrol car barged into the  thick of it, to have the wheels all but shot out from under it. The  startled policemen
  fell down a basement areaway, dragging one of their  number who had taken bullets through his legs. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter IX. THE DEVILS COLLIDE
  46
  
  The raiders betook themselves away. 
  Not once did Doc Savage detect a trace of the girl. He and Johnny  left the vicinity quietly. 
  Chapter X. TRAIL
  THE sunrise was resplendent, its coloring an artist's dream. But  not many city dwellers get up to see sunrises. 
  Johnny sat in Doc Savage's skyscraper office and frowned at an  inspiring display of pale rosy light upon
  nebulous clouds, skyscraper  spires, harbor water, ships. Doc Savage was going over the newspapers.  They
  had broken out their largest type: 
  MAMMOTH MYSTERY RAID 
  STAGED BY GUNMAN HORDE 
  The story below kept pretty close to the facts as they had come to  the attention of the reporters. There was no
  mention of Dove Zachies,  Roar Devil or Retta Kenn. 
  PURPOSE UNKNOWN 
  There was some conjecture below that which had come from some alert  rewrite man's brain. 
  GET−AWAY CARS ALL STOLEN 
  Seven cars had been found. The policemen who had come upon the  scene had done a good job of getting
  license numbers. To Doc Savage's  knowledge, there had been only seven cars. 
  V. VENABLE MEAR KNOWN 
  TO POLICE 
  They knew him well and favorably, it seemed. He had once served as  instructor in the New York police
  school, had even been a policeman,  and was now a big−time consulting criminologist, one of the practical
  kind, not a student of theory. Mear was being sought, because his  safety was feared for. 
  POSSIBLE MOTIVE 
  Maybe crooked enemies made by Mear in the course of his  crime−combating activities, had made off with
  him. But why had they  sent a young army for the purpose? 
  Doc Savage put the newspapers down. 
  "Have you a prognostication concerning identity of the raiders?"  big−worded Johnny suggested. 
  "The Roar Devil's men," Doc said. 
  "I think so, too." Johnny frowned. "But what about the girl?" 
  "She fled," Doc said. "Or Mear sent her away. You recall that he  spoke to her, and she left just after he turned
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter X. TRAIL
  47
  
  us loose." 
  "She was working for Mear," Johnny murmured, forgetting his big  words in his gloom. "I wonder if she was
  working for the Roar Devil,  too?" 
  "Time may tell," Doc replied. 
  Johnny grimaced. 
  "I hope time tells what is behind this. There must be something big  at stake. Those fellows were desperate,
  not afraid of killing.  Criminals don't stage things like that in this day, unless they have  plenty of reason. And
  where are Monk and Ham?" 
  "And Renny," Doc said. "I telephoned Powertown. Renny walked out of  the Powertown Municipal Office
  Building after pointing out that some  one had been eavesdropping on the meetings. He has not been seen
  since." 
  "What about the eavesdropper?" 
  "A young woman named Retta Kenn who answers the description of the  girl who was with V. Venable
  Mear," Doc said. "That information came  from the hotel in Powertown where she was doing her
  listening−in." 
  "I doubt if we ever see her again," Johnny grumbled. "Maybe she was  killed in all of that shooting at Mears
  place." 
  Knuckles tapped the door. Doc opened the panel. 
  Retta Kenn came in, and bumped her nose against the sheet of  transparent bulletproof glass. 
  "I'LL be superamalgamated!" gasped Johnny. 
  Retta Kenn ran her hands over the glass panel and did not find a  way past it. 
  "I thought V. Venable had all of the silly gadgets in the world,"  she said. "How do you pass this thing − or
  don't you?" 
  Doc Savage looked at her closely. He had studied psychology most of  his life. He knew all of the character
  traits of men and could spot the  small things which tell whether a man is honest or not, whether he is  friend
  or foe. He could tell an average criminal at a glance, and  usually spotted the cleverest of men in a short time. 
  He could not with certainty tell the first thing about a woman, and  he knew it. 
  He lifted Johnny's machine pistol from its holster, held it in the  general direction of the girl, and brought her
  in. He walked her  directly to the laboratory and stood her in front of a large screen. He  turned a switch. 
  A big mechanical box behind the girl began to buzz. Doc walked  around on the other side of the screen. 
  It was a big X−ray machine, and the skeleton of the girl stood out  beautifully on the fluoroscope screen. A
  gun showed just above her left  knee. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter X. TRAIL
  48
  
  The gun was probably shoved into the top of a stocking. 
  "It is common practice to examine bombs in that way," Doc said  dryly. 
  "Well, I like that!" she snapped, suddenly understanding what he  had done. 
  "Is the gun necessary?" he asked. 
  She hesitated. "Maybe not here." 
  She handed it over. 
  "Now," Doc said. "What is it?" 
  Her voice sounded as if she were thrilled − not in a cheerful way,  as if she were enjoying herself, but as if she
  were getting an enormous  kick out of things, and would do the same thing over again if she had  the chance. 
  She seemed about to answer, but it chanced that Johnny walked in  front of the X−ray and the girl was in a
  position where she could view  the fluoroscopic screen. 
  "You don't look much different," she told the incredibly gaunt  Johnny. 
  "Why are you here?" Doc Savage repeated. 
  "Help for V. Venable," she said. "He needs it. I want you to find  him. I think the Roar Devil has him. And I
  want you to catch Dove  Zachies for me." 
  "All right," Doc Savage told her. "But we'll start with something  else." 
  "With what?" 
  "With what is behind all this." 
  "I'll tell you," Retta Kenn said. 
  "WHO is the Roar Devil?" Johnny demanded. 
  "Somebody who can shake the earth," the girl said. "Somebody who  can stop all sound. Somebody who has a
  vast organization of desperate  criminals at his command." 
  "His name," Doc suggested. 
  "My friend, I'd like very well to know that myself," Retta Kenn  replied. 
  "Imperspicuousity," said Johnny. 
  "I went to school," the girl snapped. "But they didn't have that  word." 
  "Clear as mud," Johnny translated. "I am referring, of course, to  the fact that you do not know − " 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter X. TRAIL
  49
  
  "All right, all right," she said rapidly. "I know you two probably  think I'm working for the Roar Devil. But
  here's the low−down. I am  Retta Kenn, a young woman who has more money than sense. I get a kick  out of
  excitement. So I work for V. Venable Mear, who has lots of  exciting tunes chasing criminals and things like
  that." 
  She paused, eyed them hopefully, then shrugged. 
  "Two poker faces if I ever saw any. Well, a week ago, V. Venable  Mear gets a call from a mysterious person
  who said that his name was  April Fifth − " 
  "What?" Doc interrupted. 
  "April Fifth," snapped the girl. "I know it sounds goofy, but he  said his name was April Fifth, and he wanted
  us to find Dove Zachies,  seize him and deliver him like so much merchandise. It was queer. But  April Fifth
  offered ten thousand dollars for the Job, and V. Venable  needed money, so we took the job." 
  She sighed loudly. 
  "We certainly took something! We trail Dove Zachies, trying to  seize him. But you would be surprised how
  alert those bodyguards of his  are. Then we begin to learn things by eavesdropping. I'm some  eavesdropper." 
  She squinted at them. 
  "We learn Dove Zachies is in deadly fear of this Roar Devil. That  is why the bodyguards were on the job so
  strong. The Roar Devil and  Zachies are fighting. The Roar Devil wants something that Zachies has.  That
  something must be in the mountains around Powertown. That must be  where the earth shaking and those
  dams breaking and those queer periods  of absolute silence and those roaring noises come in. I haven't been
  making heads nor tails of it all, and that's the truth. Yesterday, I  got Zachies, but some one must have turned
  him loose. Does that explain  me satisfactorily?" 
  "There is the matter of eavesdropping on the Powertown city  fathers," Doc said. 
  "Oh, that." She nodded as if she had forgotten. "V. Venable told me  to do that. He said he was interested in
  this Roar Devil, and he  thought it was some one in Powertown. He thinks it is the Powertown  mayor, Leland
  Ricketts." 
  "Leland Ricketts," Doc said slowly. "Why Ricketts?" 
  "I don't know," said the girl. "But V. Venable suspects him." 
  "This all you know?" 
  "Absolutely." 
  "Dove Zachies told us the Roar Devil was a mastermind with some  fiendish scheme, and that he was
  destroying those dams near Powertown  in an effort to convince him, Zachies, that he had better throw in with
  the Roar Devil," Johnny said. 
  "Did you believe him?" the girl countered. 
  "No," Johnny admitted. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter X. TRAIL
  50
  
  Retta Kenn said, "I think we had better give Powertown a whirl.  What do you men think?" 
  "I think you might explain how you managed to escape V. Venable  Mear's house during that raid," Doc told
  her. 
  "Oh, that. Simple. V. Venable sent me for the police. Ask the  police. I called that radio car which was first on
  the scene." 
  "We go to Powertown," Doc told her. 
  THE Powertown Municipal Airport was on the south side of the city,  well down on the floor of the valley,
  and coming from it into town  carried one past the new Powertown schoolhouse and the new Powertown
  Municipal Hospital. 
  A small boy, probably tardy, was tearing for the door of the  schoolhouse when Doc, Johnny and Retta Kenn
  rode past in a taxicab. 
  In front of the hospital a police car, siren screaming, frightened  the taxi driver into the curb. The police car
  whined into the hospital  grounds. The taxi driver craned his neck. 
  "Dog−gone!" he said. "Something's happened!" 
  "Wait," Doc Savage directed, and got out of the machine and walked  into the hospital grounds. 
  There was a crowd around two dead men on the hospital lawn. 
  "They brought them out here and killed them," some one said. "It  was a dirty thing, killing two helpless men
  like that!" 
  Doc Savage's unusual height permitted him to look over the crowd  and he saw that the two dead men were
  encased in white hospital  nightgowns. 
  "Who are they?" he asked a man at his elbow. 
  "The two engineers hired to see what was making the dams break,"  the bystander replied. "The two guys
  were found in the mountains,  hypnotized or paralyzed or something. They were brought to the  hospital." 
  The man stopped as if he considered he had finished the story. 
  "They seem to be dead," Doc reminded him. 
  The other demanded, "Mean to say you haven't heard what happened?" 
  "No." 
  "A car drove up," the man explained. "It was jammed with men and  guns. They walked into the hospital,
  leaving one of their men in the  car. They dragged the two engineers out and killed them. But that ain't  the
  funniest thing." 
  "What is funnier?" Doc asked politely. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter X. TRAIL
  51
  
  "Nobody could hear anything when it was going on," said the  spectator. "The guns weren't silenced, but when
  they went off and  killed the two engineers, nobody heard it. It was the funniest thing." 
  "Any of the killers recognized?" 
  "They had masks." 
  Doc Savage went back to the taxicab, and Johnny and Retta Kenn, who  had joined him, also returned. They
  got in and the hack carried them  on. 
  "The Roar Devil," Retta Kenn said decisively. 
  "No doubt," Doc agreed. 
  "Getting scared," the girl continued. "Those two engineers must  have come onto something in the mountains,
  something that would help us  corner the Roar Devil. He was afraid you would bring them out of  whatever
  ailed them, and they would talk. What do you suppose was wrong  with them?" 
  Doc Savage said nothing. Apparently, he had not heard. 
  "What, do you think was wrong with them?" the girl repeated. 
  The bronze man's seeming deafness persisted. 
  "Say, you!" the girl said belligerently. "If you think because  you're a big−shot and the little tin idol of a lot of
  people, you can −  " 
  Johnny punched her in the side. His finger was bony and the punch  anything but gentle. 
  The girl choked, "Say, you − " 
  "You shut up!" Johnny suggested. "You're making a fool out of  yourself." 
  "I am, am I?" She twisted around as if to take a swing at him. 
  At that instant, the taxi stopped in front of the Powertown  Municipal Office Building. 
  Two policemen ran out. They seized the girl, hauled her out of the  cab and put handcuffs on her wrists. 
  Chapter XI. HIS HONOR
  RETTA KENN did not seem to care with whom she fought. She was very  mad, and she still seemed to be
  enjoying herself. She kicked one  policeman's shins. When he yelped and bent over, she hit him in the  eye.
  The other policeman wrestled her down and sat on her. 
  His Honor, Mayor Leland Ricketts, fluttered down the high steps  that led into the Municipal Office Building.
  Mayor Ricketts looked  resplendent in winged collar, cutaway and striped trousers. His  gardenia was
  enormous. He struck an attitude. 
  "Excellent!" he exclaimed stentoriously. "It does my heart good to  observe such sterling attention to duties on
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter XI. HIS HONOR
  52
  
  the part of the hired  servants of the law. I commend you − " 
  He saw Doc Savage. His mouth hung open. 
  Johnny was watching Mayor Leland Ricketts when he saw Doc Savage,  and he tried to read the mayor's
  emotions. He was not very successful.  It is hard to read the faces of most fat men, except for the eyes. In
  Mayor Leland Ricketts's eyes, Johnny thought he saw some emotion that  was not pleasant. Certainly it
  seemed more than mere surprise at seeing  the giant bronze man. 
  "Doc Savage!" Ricketts said sharply. "It is time you were getting  here." 
  The bronze man seemed not to note the tartness in his honor's  voice. He indicated Johnny and said, "This is
  my associate, William  Harper Littlejohn." 
  The girl, still being held down by the policeman, said from the  sidewalk, "What about me?" 
  His honor answered that. 
  "You," he told her, "are going to jail." 
  "On what charge?" Retta Kenn snapped. 
  "Eavesdropping," said Mayor Ricketts. 
  "Hah!" the girl exploded. "Since when did that become a crime? I  know the law. You can book me on a
  nuisance charge, and I'll be out on  bond in five minutes!" 
  Mayor Ricketts frowned pompously, eyed the policeman holding the  girl. The policeman's eye was beginning
  to darken. That seemed to give  his honor an idea. 
  "'Then we'll charge you with attempted murder," he said. 
  The girl gargled, "You − why, you − " She eyed Doc Savage. "Are you  going to stand for this?" 
  "It is hardly my position to interfere with the due courses of the  law," Doc Savage told her, without emotion. 
  She seemed about to jump up and down in her rage. 
  "What a flat tire you turned out to be!" she cried. "Why, I have  heard you could do anything you wanted to.
  And here you − " 
  "Take her away," said his honor. 
  They took her away. 
  "A rambunctious young woman," his honor said, as he conducted them  into the Municipal Office Building. 
  THEY met the city attorney, the heads of the police department and  some others in the mayor's private office.
  They held a conference. Doc  heard how the earth tremors had first been noticed about three weeks
  previously, and listened to a description of the roaring sound which  different persons had heard. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter XI. HIS HONOR
  53
  
  There were other details, which he already had heard. As far as  developing something new was concerned,
  the conference was a dud. 
  "How about our irascible feminine colleague?" Johnny asked when he  and the bronze man were apart. 
  "The girl?" Doc queried. "Let her sit it out." 
  "You're a woman−hater, are you not?" Johnny chuckled. 
  The bronze man did not commit himself on that. 
  "This one has too much vinegar and bubbles," he said. "She may be  trying to make fools of us." 
  Johnny squinted. "Can you not tell?" 
  "No," Doc, admitted frankly. "Are you ready to go into the  mountains?" 
  "Into the mountains?" Johnny seemed surprised. 
  "The earth shocks," Doc said. "We must find exactly what they are.  The simplest method of doing that is to
  spot automatic recording  seismographs at scattered points, so that if there is another shock, we  will have
  something concrete to go on." 
  "Very well," Johnny said. "I brought the necessary appurtenances  for such a project. Any thing else you think
  I should do?" 
  "Just keep your eyes open," Doc said. "We want Renny. We want Monk  and Ham. They come first." 
  "Emphatically," Johnny agreed, and departed. 
  Doc Savage went into the Municipal Office Building, looking for  Mayor Leland Ricketts. There was no sign
  of his honor. Doc made  inquiries. 
  "He departed in a great hurry," some one explained. "I think he got  a note." 
  "Where does he live?" Doc asked. 
  "On the hill. The rustic type place. You can't miss it." 
  "Thank you," Doc said. 
  The rustic type place would have been hard to miss. It was one of  the most pretentious log structures Doc
  Savage had ever seen, more of a  mansion than a woodland type home. A young forest must have been
  denuded in the making of it. Everything about it and all the fittings  possible seemed to have been made out of
  logs. 
  There was a swimming pool. Or maybe it was a small lake. Probably  both, for there was a springboard, a
  sand beach and a pair of canoes  drawn up on one side. The lake, or pool, at one end was lined with  logs,
  either natural, or made of concrete and colored in imitation. 
  There was a lot of shaggy shrubbery. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter XI. HIS HONOR
  54
  
  Mayor Leland Ricketts over the telephone to New York had been  pompous and friendly. There might have
  been some one listening to him.  Mayor Ricketts here in Powertown had been pompous and not so friendly. 
  Doc Savage entered the grounds through the shrubbery, and he did  his absolute best to keep from being seen.
  He made a complete circuit  of the place. It was as quiet as a tomb. 
  Doc Savage stood up and walked to the door. He was not exactly  taking a chance. He wore a bulletproof coat
  under his clothing, and a  pair of chain−mail shorts. 
  Some one might shoot him in the head, but they would have to do it  accurately, because the bronze hair in
  view was not his own, but  artificial hair on a thin but immensely strong metal skullcap. And he  was keeping
  his eyes open. 
  A gnarled limb with a knot on the end had been fashioned into a  knocker. Doc Savage stood to one side of the
  door, where no one would  ordinarily stand, lifted the knocker and let it fall. 
  His features wore no particular expression as he manipulated the  knocker, and a bystander could not have
  told whether he really expected  trouble, or even a response to his summons. 
  Doc's features rarely showed emotion. If the knocker had been a  trick machine gun trigger and the weapon
  had ripped out, it was  doubtful if he would have shown great wonder. 
  But he looked astounded at what did happen when the knocker fell. 
  There was simply no sound. 
  THE bronze man reacted as if dynamite had exploded under him. He  whipped off the porch and down back
  of the nearest shrub. He crushed  part of the bush in landing, and it shook itself back in place after it  was
  released. The movement made no sound. Doc's impact with the ground  had made no sound. 
  The bright, sunshiny world had become as devoid of sound as the  deepest tomb. 
  It was incredible! It brought that scalp tingling which men mistake  for their hair trying to stand on end. 
  Doc Savage, lying face down, felt a sensation as if small birds  were alighting on his back. He turned his head,
  looking up. Pieces of  bark and bits of wood were landing on his back. They came out of the  cabin walls.
  Round holes and splintered places were appearing in the  cabin wall. 
  Judging from their frequency of arrival, the bullets must be coming  from a machine gun. 
  When the bush began to fall apart, Doc Savage crawled. He made no  bid for silence. There was no such thing
  as sound. He did not crawl  back into the ground. The shooting was out there somewhere. 
  He saw a basement window, knocked the glass out of the frame, and  cut himself a little as he crawled
  through. While he had hold of the  window sill, there was a faint vibratory tickling in his palms. That  was the
  vibration set up by the impact of the bullets. 
  Doc Savage, intending to get into the upper regions of the house  and look out from some vantage point and
  identify the gunners, if  possible, walked toward the stairway. 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter XI. HIS HONOR
  55
  
  The house was a labyrinth of rooms. Doc went through four or five  before he sighted a stairway. He went
  cautiously, using his flake−gold  eyes. In the room next to the stairway, there was something which  halted
  him. 
  Sunlight slanted in through the windows, and there was enough dust  in the air to make one of those gray fog
  bars which are common to  sunbeams slanting into rooms. These had been in the other rooms. Doc  had
  studied them carefully. Persons in fast motion stir up the air in a  room, and it swirls, at least for a few
  moments after they are gone.  The dust in the other rooms had been still. 
  In this room, it was in motion. 
  Doc studied the phenomenon. The movement was close to the floor,  and the window was near a closed door.
  Doc Savage went over and tried  the door. It was locked. It did not look strong. He yanked − and the  door
  broke open. 
  Retta Kenn's breath, coming through the crack at the bottom of the  door, had been stirring the dust. 
  THE door opened into a closet, and she had been bound securely with  lengths of wire which must have come
  from a floor lamp. She looked as  if she had been in a fight, for she was scratched, her hair was  tousled, and
  something − a blow, no doubt − had started her nose  swelling. 
  "I thought you were in jail," Doc Savage told her. 
  He heard himself, but it was only because of such vibration as the  vocal cords transmitted through the bony
  structure of his head to the  ear mechanism. 
  "Turn me loose," the girl said. 
  Her voice made no sound, but Doc Savage understood her words  because he was an experienced lip reader. 
  He shook his head, as if he had no idea what she had said. It was  not exactly bald deceit. He could have
  shook his head thus for any one  of many reasons. 
  He took the wire off her ankles, stood her up, turned her and began  loosening her wrists from behind her. She
  had not noticed that he had  stood her so that he could watch her features in the mirror on top of a  chiffonier. 
  She was excited and she said something to herself. She said it so  rapidly that he all but missed it, and he made
  a mental resolution to  brush up on his lip reading, even as he caught it. 
  "Watch your step, old girl," she said. "You're going to have to  explain why you were out here, and make it
  sound good." 
  She must have been talking to herself. 
  Doc Savage got her loose, and guided her toward the upper regions  of the house. Suddenly he could hear their
  footsteps, the ticking of  clocks in various parts of the house. There seemed to be scores of  clocks. He had not
  noticed them particularly before, but now he noted  that they were on every wall. The mysterious silence had
  come to an  end. 
  "Ha!" said the girl. "They've shut it off." 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter XI. HIS HONOR
  56
  
  "What off?" 
  She twisted around and looked at him. "The thing that stops all  sound, whatever it is." 
  "So it is a machine," he said. 
  "How do I know," she snapped. "It would have to be, wouldn't it?" 
  Doc Savage did not answer. He had found a second−story window − a  part only of the big log house jutted up
  to a second story − and was  looking out. He could see no one. The vicinity looked utterly peaceful.  Such
  birds as he could see in the shrubbery did not look excited. 
  "I thought you were in jail," he told the girl. 
  "What a help you turned out to be," she snapped. "Why did you let  them lock me up?" 
  "You were safer there," he told her. "This is no affair for a  woman. Men are getting killed. How did you get
  out?" 
  She sniffed, as if his opinion on that point were not worth  considering. Then she answered the question about
  the jail. 
  "I stumbled and fell down," she said. "The very polite policeman  bent over to pick me up, and I kicked his
  head. He went to sleep and I  walked out." 
  "Very unwise," Doc said. "Now they'll put you in jail and really  keep you there." 
  She said in an ominous voice, "I wasn't safe in jail. My life was  in danger." 
  "Why?" 
  She made her voice even more ominous. 
  "Mayor Leland Ricketts is the Roar Devil," she said. 
  "You have proof?" Doc Savage asked 
  "I have," she said. 
  Chapter XII. THE WRONGED INVENTOR
  DOC SAVAGE heard a commotion among the birds outside. It was around  to the west of the house, and he
  hurriedly found a window facing in  that direction. It was only a hawk. 
  "Is it a secret, how you got in that closet?" he asked. 
  Retta Kenn had found a mirror−door in the room and was frowning at  herself. 
  "Am I a sight," she said. "No, it's not a secret. You see, I told  you V. Venable suspected his honor − " 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter XII. THE WRONGED INVENTOR
  57
  
  "Why?" 
  "I told you I didn't know why," she snapped. "Don't interrupt. I  came out here to see what I could find.
  Believe it or not, I did look  around for you first, but you were in the Municipal Office Building,  and I couldn't
  come in there, because that's where they have their jail  and the police station and all the rest. So I came out
  here and got in  the house and had bad luck. The Roar Devil caught me." 
  "Mayor Ricketts?" Doc corrected questioningly. 
  "Well, Mayor Ricketts, then," she said grudgingly. "He grabbed me  and we had a fight. The old boy can
  scrap. He tied me up. All of the  time, he kept looking out the windows real anxiouslike. He seemed to be
  expecting some one or something." 
  "Is that all?" 
  "That's all." 
  "I thought you said you had proof that Mayor Ricketts was the Roar  Devil," Doc told her. 
  "That proves it as far as I am concerned." She looked at the bronze  man closely, inquisitively. "Don't you
  think he acted queer? And where  did he go?" 
  Doc Savage did not answer that. He said, "We will look his  establishment over." 
  They began to search the big log mansion. It was no small job.  There must have been at least fifty rooms, and
  none of them small.  There should have been numerous servants for such a ménage. They  encountered none. 
  "Where's all the help?" the girl puzzled aloud. 
  It was Doc Savage who turned up the first really interesting item.  This was a closet in a remote part of the
  attic, and the door was  padlocked. Doc Savage picked the lock with a special tool which he  carried for that
  purpose. 
  Guns were inside the closet. There were rifles, revolvers and three  submachine guns, along with some
  thousands of rounds of ammunition. 
  The girl indicated the machine guns and said, "Uncle Sam don't  allow this." 
  "Unless the possessors have permits," Doc corrected. 
  They did not search steadily, but kept a sharp lookout through the  windows. They saw nothing alarming. 
  "Why didn't you go out and hunt the gunners?" the girl asked. 
  "Chances are one in a thousand of catching them," the bronze man  told her. "Wise crooks have cars handy.
  These ones, from their previous  actions, seem to be wise. Anyway, Mayor Ricketts is the chief interest  at
  present." 
  In what seemed to be his honor's study, they scrutinized papers.  There were numerous rent receipts, and Doc
  examined those hurriedly.  Ricketts seemed to own considerable property. 
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  The girl was going through the wastebasket. 
  "Come here," she said suddenly. 
  Doc went over. She had pieced together a torn paper. There was  typing on it, but the typing was hardly
  readable at the end; the  typewriter ribbon must have stuck. It was as if some one had been  writing a note, had
  made a botched job of it, and had discarded this  sheet for another try. 
  They studied the note closely and finally managed to read it. There  was no address on it. 
  Doc Savage's man Renny in Powertown. Trail him and get him. 
  The Roar Devil. 
  Doc Savage put another sheet of paper in Mayor Leland Ricketts's  typewriter and repeated the message. He
  compared the typing. The letter  "Y" stuck high on both. He wound the typewriter ribbon. There was a  hole in
  one end where the ribbon had stuck and the keys had beaten it. 
  "Now, who do you think is the Roar Devil?" Retta Kenn asked with  elaborate sarcasm. 
  Doc Savage looked at her closely. "You did not by chance have that  note with you?" 
  For a moment, she looked as if she were going to blow up. Then she  shrugged and hissed disgustedly. 
  "Oh, sure," she said with elaborate scorn. "I had those machine  guns upstairs in my pocket, too. I tied myself
  up and − " 
  Her voice stopped. Her lips still moved. No sound came. Doc snapped  his fingers. He could not hear the snap. 
  He whipped to a window, looked out. Men were running through the  shrubbery toward the house. They wore
  conventional bulletproof vests,  steel military helmets, and they carried auto rifles and machine guns. 
  THE bronze man vaulted a chair on his way to the door. It was the  front door, and it was open. The door itself
  leaned drunkenly and part  of the jamb had been shot away in the previous attack. 
  Doc Savage produced a rather plump metal case. The interior was  plush lined, with numerous small pockets,
  and in these reposed what at  first might have been mistaken for glass marbles. They were thin glass  globes
  filled with a bilious appearing liquid. 
  Doc lifted one out, handling it with great care, and flung it as  far as he could toward the attackers. He
  followed with a second. Then  he backed from the door. 
  A moment later, a storm of bullets came in. 
  Lead was striking the house. The vibration told that. A metal vase,  hit by a bullet, went skipping across the
  floor. Glass fell out of  windows. There was absolutely no sound. 
  Doc Savage ran to the rear of the house. Men were coming there,  attacking. Like those in front, they were
  equipped to almost military  completeness. 
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  The bronze man threw two of his glass bulbs. They broke in front of  the attackers. He did not wait to see
  results, but spun, got the girl,  Retta Kenn, and urged her up the stairs. He did not stop at the second  floor. He
  went on, clambering into the attic and up into a tiny cupola. 
  It seemed to be the bronze man's desire to get as high above the  ground as possible. 
  The cupola had small windows − slits, rather − through which they  could look out. The girl stared at the
  attackers. Some − those nearest  the house − had gone down. She turned to Doc. Her lips framed a word. 
  "Gas." 
  He nodded. 
  "But they may have masks," her lips formed. 
  Doc nodded, then shrugged as if it did not make any difference. He  managed to convey his opinions without
  words almost as clearly as he  could have with them. 
  The girl looked out again. The men to the rear had put on masks.  They raced forward. They got almost to the
  house. Then they began  falling. The wise ones turned, and some of them managed to run to  safety before they
  fell. 
  The girl turned to Doc Savage. "The masks do not seem to help  them." 
  He made a gesture which indicated that it did not matter. 
  "What kind of gas is it?" she asked. 
  His hands, his shoulders, his features moved. Although he did not  speak a word, it became perfectly clear that
  the gas was one which went  through the pores of the skin, and that the only effective protection  against it was
  a suit which covered the body completely and would keep  it out 
  "It looks like we've got them," she lipped. 
  The attackers had come to the conclusion that they had caught a  Tartar, and instead of trying to take the
  house, were now endeavoring  to assist those who had been overcome and get away from the vicinity.  It
  became evident that they were going to succeed. 
  If Doc Savage had any idea of preventing them from getting away, it  was made hopeless by the stream of
  bullets which other men farther away  kept pouring at the log mansion. A small torrent of slugs marched over
  the cupola, and Doc and the girl sought safety below. 
  They waited there for some minutes. It was foolish to show  themselves. There was death everywhere around
  the house. 
  Then, suddenly, they could hear again. 
  THE girl spoke first. 
  "After the first attempt, they waited, thinking we would try to  come out," she said. "When we did not appear,
  they decided to rush the  place. They have probably gone now." 
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  Doc Savage said, "That is what I thought." 
  She stared at him. "But you told me they had probably gotten away  in cars − " She shook her head. "You're a
  strange one. I'm beginning to  get scared of you." 
  She did not sound scared. She sounded quite cheerful, as if she  were enjoying herself hugely. 
  Doc Savage looked out. Men were gone from the grounds. They had  succeeded in taking away all who had
  been overcome by the gas. 
  "Let's go down," the girl suggested. "Maybe we'll find one of them.  We could ask him some questions." 
  "Not yet," Doc told her. "That gas is a new type. It is heavy, and  hangs close to the earth. It is moved by the
  wind, but slowly. We will  have to wait until it is carried off." 
  At the end of fifteen minutes the bronze man indicated that it  might be safe, and they went down. They went
  out to the street − or  road, for the town was some distance away − and found no sign of their  enemies. 
  "We will look the grounds over," Doc decided. "Footprints, and that  sort of thing." 
  They found footprints. The ground was soft, and it had been  trampled wildly. Many of the prints were as
  clearly defined as could be  wished. Doc Savage merely looked at them. 
  "Aren't you going to measure them or photograph them, or  something?" the girl asked. 
  He said he wasn't. 
  "Why not?" 
  He said that he would recognize any one of them if he saw it again,  saying it casually, as if it were nothing
  out of the ordinary. She  stared at him. 
  "Bless me!" she gulped. "I believe you mean it? What are you − the  original camera eye?" 
  He did not explain that it had taken him years of intensive  training and study and practice to develop such
  extraordinary abilities  as he had. He went on examining the grounds. 
  They neared the big swimming pool and the girl let out a gasp. 
  "Look!" she pointed. "A dead man!" 
  THE man lay on his back, his body twisted grotesquely, and his head  was as wet and soggy as a sponge
  soaked in red ink; but he was not  dead. 
  Beside him was an ornamental sun dial which looked like a log, but  which was concrete painted to resemble a
  log. The man's head had come  into contact with that, for some of his hair was sticking to the jagged  imitation
  bark. 
  They looked at him; he was breathing noisily. He was a gaunt man,  and he needed a shave, clean clothes, a
  haircut, a bath. He looked more  like a bum than a real bum, almost as if he had made up for the part. 
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  Doc Savage leaned over and did several things to him. The things he  did showed the man was genuinely
  unconscious. One faking senselessness  would have reacted differently. 
  The swimming pool was only a few yards away. Doc Savage went to it.  The water seemed very deep at this
  point, and he was careful as he  swung down and soaked a handkerchief. He came back and bathed the
  victim's face. The bronze man always carried a small emergency kit, and  he used the smelling salts from that. 
  The trampish−looking man reacted to the salts, but not as much as  he should have. Doc was feeling for traces
  of skull fracture when the  fellow showed that he had come to more completely than he had let on. 
  He slashed a furious blow at Doc's jaw. Doc moved enough to let the  fist go by, as if he had expected just
  that. The man grabbed him. He  let the fellow take hold. Then he grasped the fellow's wrists, brought  them
  together and held them easily with one hand. 
  The man gave up. 
  "All right," he snarled. "Take me back to the Roar Devil." 
  A slight stiltedness in the man's speech made Doc believe he was  not native born. 
  Doc Savage studied him. "You know me?" 
  The man glared. "I do not. You must be a new member of the gang." 
  "I am Doc Savage," Doc said. 
  "Sacre!" The man swallowed several times, as if to keep genuine  amazement down. "You are the terrible one
  of whom they are so  frightened! What luck I have to fall into your hands!" 
  Doc asked, "How did you get here?" 
  "They have me a prisoner," the man said eagerly. "I am with them,  in their power, at a hiding place they use.
  Where it is, I do not know.  But a call did come from their leader, the Roar Devil, telling them  they must come
  in the great hurry and protect his house." 
  "The Roar Devil's house?" 
  "That is right. They bring me with them, and come to guard this  house, and they try to shoot somebody. I do
  not know who, but maybe it  is you, no?" 
  "It was," Doc agreed. 
  "They have it the bad luck the first time," the man went on, taking  some liberties with his grammatical
  construction. "They wait for you to  come out, but you fool them, so they try it once more, and something
  happen. There is the much excitement. I break away but the bad luck I  have. I am run, oh, so fast, when I fall
  down and bump my head on that  − " 
  He pointed at the sun dial, swore at it, looked at the girl and  apologized. 
  "Who are you?" Doc asked. 
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  62
  
  "Flagler D'Aughtell," said the disreputable−looking man. 
  RETTA KENN started and gasped, "Oh! Then you are the inventor who  has a cabin in the mountains − a sort
  of laboratory and home?" 
  "I thought they burned it down," said D'Aughtell. "They told me  they had." 
  "And you had an assistant named Mort Collins?" the girl continued. 
  "Had is correct," D'Aughtell muttered sorrowfully. "They killed  him." 
  "No!" the girl corrected "He was drugged or something, as they did  those two engineers. I saw him in the
  cabin." 
  "They killed him later," D'Aughtell told her. "They got worried and  went back and got him and shot him to
  death. They have his body in  their hiding place." 
  "They have held you a prisoner?" Doc asked. 
  Again D'Aughtell nodded gloomily. 
  "It is a horrible existence I have led," he said. "They make the  raid on my cabin, and take me away. They also
  steal much of my  scientific equipment, and smash the rest. Their chief, this Roar Devil,  is a scientific fiend.
  He is mad over science." 
  "Why did they keep you alive," Doc asked. 
  "To make them a powerful explosive," D'Aughtell growled. "It is a  common explosive they want,
  trinitrotoluene. They have the ingredients.  Me, they make mix it. I have to do so. I do not want to die." 
  "What were they using if for?" Doc queried. 
  "That, I do not know," the other declared. "They are use great  quantity of it, however." 
  Then he shut his eyes tightly, sighed, and a pallor overspread his  face. He slumped on the ground. 
  "Fainted," the girl said. 
  They telephoned for a taxicab, and D'Aughtell had not revived by  the time the machine got there. Doc Savage
  loaded the senseless man  into the cab, got in with the girl and directed the hackman to take  them to the
  airport. 
  He did not tell the cab driver anything, nor did the latter seem to  notice anything strange about Mayor Leland
  Ricketts's log mansion. They  had met him in the driveway, so that he had not come close enough to  notice the
  marks left by bullets. 
  They were halfway to the airport when the earth gave a distinct  lurch under the car, and the driver, probably
  more because of fright  than because the machine had been thrown out of control, ran into a  ditch but did no
  damage. 
  Dust jumped up from the roadway. A chimney fell over on a near−by  house. There was only the one shock. 
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  The taxi driver said in a horrified voice, "My wife and kids are in  a house below that dam!" 
  They all listened. There was no rumbling to show that the big dam  had broken. 
  "Drive on to the airport," Doc directed. 
  To their ears came the thump of an explosion from a considerable  distance away. A person with experience
  could have told that the blast  was one of considerable magnitude. 
  The driver was frightened. Although there had been no earth shock,  he stopped the car again and listened,
  horror on his face. Finally,  after he had stared fearfully for some time in the direction of the  great dam, he got
  back in and drove on. 
  "I wonder what that was," Retta Kenn pondered aloud. 
  She sounded as if she were enjoying the whole thing. 
  Chapter XIII. ONE BY ONE
  WHEN Doc and the girl arrived at the airport, Doc found his plane  nearly entirely destroyed. 
  The tires had survived; that was strange, but then powerful  explosives often do the unusual. The rest of the
  plane was a ruin, with  a second look necessary to even tell what it had been. 
  It bore no resemblance to the costly and extremely modern speed  plane in which Doc Savage and Johnny had
  come to Powertown from New  York. 
  The man in charge of the airport explained. 
  "It must've been a bomb that somebody put in when nobody was  looking," he said. "We didn't see a soul
  around before the thing went  off, and not after, either." 
  Doc Savage went back and got in the taxicab. 
  "So this is the explosion we heard," the driver mumbled. 
  Retta Kenn tapped D'Aughtell, who was still unconscious, and  assumed a knowing expression. 
  "Some of the trinitrotoluene he said he was forced to mix," she  said "But why blow up your plane?" 
  "Keep me from spying on them from the air," the bronze man said.  "Maybe they knew that ship was fitted
  with marvelous air photographic  equipment − cameras that could take almost microscopic pictures of the
  ground. And maybe they just did it to get my goat." 
  He directed the taxicab to the local express station, and sat  without moving or speaking, but watching
  D'Aughtell steadily, until he  got out at the station to ask for a box which might have come in from  New York
  addressed to Alexander Smithers. 
  The express agent looked, and came back with Alexander Smithers's  box. Doc produced a driver's license
  which proved to the agent's  satisfaction that he was Alexander Smithers. 
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  64
  
  The box was large and of metal, and when Doc Savage opened it,  proved to hold, among other things, a radio
  transmitter−and−receiver of  unusual compactness. 
  "There was one in the plane," he explained. "I sent this one up  from New York before we left, just on the
  chance that there might be an  emergency." 
  He did not add that much of his phenomenal success was due to that  simple habit of preparing well in
  advance, against every conceivable  emergency. He probably prepared for a hundred things that never
  happened for every one that did. 
  Johnny was waiting on the air when Doc tuned in and attempted  reaching him. Johnny had carried a portable
  transmitter−and−receiver  with him. 
  "What did your seismographs show on that last earth tremor?" Doc  Savage asked him. 
  "Something that wasn't very nice," Johnny said with small, gloomy  words. 
  THE fact that he continued to use small words showed that the gaunt  archeologist and geologist was worried.
  He began to speak slowly and  distinctly over the air, and Doc Savage did not interrupt the recital.  It was not
  necessary. Johnny started out supplying even the minute  details. 
  "I went to the region which seems central in the disturbances,"  Johnny said. "I took a car, then walked. I went
  alone, carrying my  equipment, which consisted of four of those supersensitive recording  seismographs and a
  sonic apparatus for ascertaining in some degree the  nature of the strata underlying the vicinity. 
  "I set up my instruments nine miles north of Powertown, and two  miles west. You will recognize the spot by
  the large mountain, which is  very dark and seems composed entirely of stone. The mountain is rugged,
  marked with many ravines and pits, and there are very few trees on it. 
  "I took sonic tests of the underlying strata and found something  rather peculiar and as things are turning out,
  quite ominous. For  instance − " 
  There was a pause − deep silence. 
  "For instance what?" Doc asked. 
  "Help!" Johnny's voice screamed out of the speaker. 
  The other transmitter banged as if some one had kicked it. Then its  carrier wave went off the air. 
  Doc Savage sat perfectly motionless before his own receiver,  listening for a long time. He did not move a
  muscle. He was so still  that the girl, Retta Kenn, looked at him, and something about his  immobility seemed
  to appall her. For the first time she looked as if  she were not enjoying herself. 
  And then D'Aughtell revived. He groaned several times, turned over,  and since he was lying in the taxicab,
  fell out of the machine. That,  instead of putting him out again, revived him more. 
  Retta Kenn went over to D'Aughtell. 
  Doc Savage still crouched before his radio receiver. He seemed  unaware of anything else. 
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  65
  
  Retta Kenn asked D'Aughtell, "Have you ever seen the Roar Devil?" 
  "Yes," said D'Aughtell. 
  "Who is he?" the girl questioned. Her voice was a snap. 
  "His name is Ricketts," said D'Aughtell. 
  "The mayor − " 
  "Mayor Leland Ricketts of Powertown," said D'Aughtell emphatically. 
  Doc Savage seemed not to have heard. He had not taken his strange  flake−gold eyes from the radio receiver
  over which Johnny's last words  − that cry for help − had come. 
  Chapter XIV. CANDIDATES FOR DEATH
  JOHNNY looked like a scholar. He was. He also looked like a man  who, if given a hard shove, would fall
  apart. That was a wrong  impression. He was as tough as walrus hide, and he knew all of the  fighting tricks,
  either under the Queensbury or the  dock−walloper−rules. 
  He had been fighting for five minutes. He was not doing so badly. 
  A man snarled and jumped at Johnny's throat with both hands held  out like claws. Johnny stuck the two
  forefingers of his right hand in  the man's eyes, and the man fell back and rolled over and over, cursing  and
  yelling at his companions to kill Johnny and cut his heart out. 
  There was seven of the attackers, all of them gentlemen who would  have looked out of place in a
  drawing−room. They had started the thing  quite confidently. They were not so sure of themselves now. 
  Three of them were senseless. The one just blinded was the fourth. 
  The three survivors cursed and grunted and gasped and kicked and  slugged. They were in the wreck of the
  radio transmitter−and−receiver,  which had been trampled to pieces. They were becoming tired. Johnny, on
  the other hand, seemed just warming up. 
  "Bony − buzzard!" one gasped. 
  Johnny performed the painfully unexpected feat of kicking a man  behind him in the face without turning
  around, and the fracas came to a  momentary pause. 
  "We're gonna have to croak − him − after all!" a man panted. "Chief  said − do that − if we had to!" 
  Johnny had been wondering about that. The men had guns, but they  had not tried to use them. In the back of
  Johnny's mind was the  intention of fighting as long as they seemed inclined to keep it up  without bringing in
  guns. 
  One of the men dragged out an automatic. Johnny promptly stopped  fighting. He half expected to be shot.
  But his foes appeared glad  enough to have him stop. 
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  "Shoulda thought of the gun before," one grunted. 
  Johnny panted loudly. He carefully made his arms tremble and his  knees go rubbery. 
  "Played himself out," chuckled one of the men. "But man, he sure  surprised me!" 
  Johnny sat down. He looked as if he had collapsed. If any one noted  he had come down on a smooth hard
  rock, they did not think anything  peculiar about that. 
  Nor did any one seem to notice that Johnny had torn a button off  the cuff of his coat and was surreptitiously
  making marks on the flat  stone. The rock was hard. Johnny's secretive scrapings on it left no  perceptible
  trace. 
  The men gathered around him after they had rested a bit, searched  him, and took away his machine pistol,
  ammo drums, money, notebooks,  seismograph charts, and other paraphernalia. 
  "What'd you learn about the whole thing?" one of the men asked  Johnny. "Get the low−down?" 
  "Certain bicephalous, consanguineous eventualities," Johnny said,  without batting an eye. 
  The listeners looked slightly dizzy. 
  "We've heard about them words," one said. "They sure live up to  advance notices!" 
  THEY proceeded to revive their companions − no one had been damaged  seriously − and get them in moving
  condition. Johnny watched them. 
  A small stream made noisy gurgles near by. It was because of that  sound that the assailants had been able to
  come upon him unawares,  Johnny decided. Of course, he had been careless to the extent that he  had permitted
  himself to become too absorbed by what he had been doing.  That is a common fault of scholars, or, possibly,
  not a fault, because  it is impossible to learn anything without concentration. 
  They must have been watching him for some time, Johnny perceived,  because they had gathered up the
  seismographs which he had planted at  intervals. They now destroyed these, using stones to beat them into a
  metal pulp. Johnny winced with each destructive blow. Those things had  cost more than the average bank
  president earns in a year. 
  "You are the Roar Devil's men?" he demanded. 
  "Heck, no," said one of the men, acting surprised. 
  Johnny frowned at him. "You are not going to lie to me?" 
  "Heck, no," said the other. "We're field agents of Santa Claus. We  go around looking for little boys − " 
  "Stow it!" some one snapped. "This guy was lally−gagging over that  radio when we jumped him, and
  somebody is liable to have gotten wise.  We'd better blow." 
  They walked the bed of the noisy little creek. Sometimes the water  was up around their hips. More often, it
  washed their ankles. It was  cold. The men shivered and swore. 
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  The creek dropped down into one of the minor reservoirs − minor  only in that it was but a part of the
  development around Powertown. The  lake was deep, a mile wide and a number of miles long. 
  Where the creek emptied into the lake, there was a hidden  flat−bottomed boat fitted with an outboard motor.
  The men got in. They  flooded the carburetor of the outboard in trying to start it, and the  man with the starting
  cord accidentally whipped the faces of those  behind him with the cord. They nearly fought. 
  After the motor had started and the boat was moving, it could be  seen that the exhaust − the pipe was
  underwater − was leaving a trail  of oil. 
  "Somebody mixed too much oil in the gasoline," a man gritted.  "Wonder if anybody can trail us by that?" 
  They worried about it, but did not change their course. By the time  they reached the other side of the lake,
  they had hit upon a plan. 
  They unloaded on a sloping rock beach which would retain no  footprints. They did not bring the boat clear in,
  but waded ashore,  then turned the boat and, with the motor wide open, headed it across  the lake. 
  They had been lucky in adjusting the motor for direction, because  the boat did not swing much from the
  course they had intended. 
  "It'll run upon the beach hard wherever it hits," a man chuckled.  "That'll make it look like it was hauled up." 
  "Come on," another said impatiently. "The big−shot may have gotten  in." 
  IT looked like a little summer camp, very peaceful. There was a  golf course of nine holes, with several men
  playing on it. The men were  correctly dressed for the game; but they were playing terribly, slicing  balls into
  the rough and missing swings entirely. Some of them were  acting as caddies, but their attitudes were strange,
  because they swore  terribly at players who accidentally drove balls into the rough. 
  There were tennis courts, with lean, hard−looking players on them.  There was a swimming pool, and more
  than one man in swimming or getting  a sunburn had bullet scars on his person. 
  There were no women in sight. 
  "The hangout, eh?" Johnny asked. 
  One of his captors looked disgusted. 
  "You catch on that quick?" he growled. 
  "It would not fool a policeman thirty seconds," Johnny replied. 
  They advanced toward what was ostensibly a small hotel, from which  a driveway led toward a distant paved
  highway. Men, neat in white  flannels, had dice and poker games going on the veranda. 
  Looking them over, Johnny decided they were as hard an aggregation  as he had ever observed. They were
  older than the average mob of  criminals, too. Johnny had been through penitentiaries, where he had  been
  struck by the youth of the inmates − the majority of them around  twenty. The ages of these men would
  average between thirty and forty.  Whoever had assembled them believed in experienced heads. 
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  68
  
  No guns were in sight. Probably that was in case the police should  pay a visit. 
  Johnny was escorted inside. The lobby was large and ornate, and  there was a fountain and a pool in which
  fish swam. The pool was quite  large. 
  They led him to the fountain. He noted that a small imitation  brook, fish swimming in it, ran off across the
  lobby floor, and was  crossed by tiny rustic bridges. It was rather clever. 
  One of the men pointed at the pool and said, "In!" 
  Johnny eyed the pool. It was deeper than he had expected, but  clear, and he could see the long green strands
  of artificial moss in  the bottom. There was moss on the sides, but the pool looked what it  was supposed to be. 
  "Going to drown me here?" Johnny asked. "Rather preternatural, no?" 
  He was given a shove and fell into the pool with a great splash.  Because his hands were still bound, Johnny
  knew he would have to  clamber up the sides to get out, so, while he was still under, he  stroked with his feet,
  shoving himself over. 
  To his astonishment, he came up under a hidden lip beyond the moss,  and found himself in an air space. The
  nature of the pool must be  cleverly camouflaged with the moss, and mirrors, as well. 
  Hands reached down and seized him. He was hauled, dripping, into a  space that was very cramped. Then he
  was dragged down what seemed to be  a ladder, for he banged its rungs in falling and was kicked by his
  captor. He was stood erect in a narrow passage and marched forward,  then down steep steps and into a
  brightly lighted room. The lights were  so bright that he could not see for a moment. 
  Monk's small, childlike voice said, "Well, do look who is with us!" 
  JOHNNY'S eyes accustomed themselves quickly to the light, and he  could make out Monk, and Ham as well,
  shackled by chains to concrete  rings in the floor. 
  "A very unceremonious encounter," Johnny said. 
  "Holy cow!" boomed a voice from a corner. "How'd they get you?" 
  It was Renny, also chained. He was battered, and not many of his  clothes were still left on him. The hide was
  practically all gone from  the knuckles of his enormous hands. 
  Johnny explained how he had been captured. He was not interrupted,  except that his captors equipped him
  with another chain and fastened  him to the floor. They did not, however, try to stop his speech. 
  "Have you gentlemen learned the motivation of our fond hosts?" he  finished questioningly 
  Renny shrugged; Monk shook his head, and Ham stared gloomily. 
  "The trouble seems to be between the Roar Devil and Dove Zachies,"  Renny said, booming. "Dove Zachies
  has something hidden that he is  determined the Roar Devil shall not have, and the Roar Devil is just as
  determined to get it." 
  "Know what it is?" Monk asked Johnny. 
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  "No. Don't you?" 
  "Nary a guess," Monk grumbled. "We been putting together all we  heard, and we about half concluded
  whatever it is ain't money." 
  "Then what could it be?" 
  "Your guess is as good as anybody's," Monk told him. 
  Ham studied Johnny intently. "You were up here with those  seismographs and things when the earth gave one
  of its shimmies. What  did you decide?" 
  "I decided that things are very bad, and can become worse," Johnny  said slowly, shunning his usual big
  words. "I will explain why. My  soundings with the sonic apparatus showed me an enormous earth fault of
  rather unusual formation. For instance, some hundreds of feet below the  surface the so−called bedrock is
  interrupted by a strata of sand and  gravel which, in turn, lies on other bedrock. 
  "This sand and gravel sheet slopes upward at an angle, and you  might liken it to at layer of ball bearings
  under the surface of the  earth. In other words, every pronounced shock causes a correspondingly  much
  greater shift in the earth surface. 
  "For instance, I am quite sure that the surface of the region  around Powertown, and especially about the
  dams, has moved some twelve  or fifteen feet recently. You can guess what effect that has on the  surface. It
  has resulted in the breaking of dams, and it will result in  the breaking of others if more blasts are set off." 
  "Blasts!" Monk interjected. "What are you driving at?" 
  "The thing which causes the earth shocks, as far as the  seismographs showed, and they are very dependable,
  is an explosion of  tremendous power," said Johnny. 
  "Nerts!" Monk said. "An explosion big enough to cause the surface  of the earth to slide would be heard for
  miles." 
  "You forget," Johnny said, "the silencing device, or whatever it is  that brings those periods of absolute
  silence." 
  "That Roar Devil is a clever cuss," Monk grunted. 
  "If we only knew who he is," Johnny murmured. 
  Monk blinked. "We do." 
  "You mean − " Johnny gulped, and seemed too surprised to continue. 
  "Oh, we've overheard enough to tell us who he is," Monk said. 
  "Who is he?" 
  "Mayor Leland Ricketts, of Powertown," Monk said. 
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  THERE was a commotion at the entrance. The guard looked up the  passage, then grinned over his shoulder at
  the prisoners picketed out  on the floor. 
  "You've got company coming." 
  There was more scuffling, then a man was hauled through the  opening, kicked ungently to the center of the
  floor, and staked out  with one of the chains and iron rings. 
  Johnny stared at the newcomer, it was V. Venable Mear. 
  "So you're back with us," Monk told V. Venable Mear amiably. 
  That seemed to indicate Mear had been a previous companion. Johnny  asked about this, and was assured it
  was true − that V. Venable Mear  had been hauled away, some hours before. 
  "They seemed to think I might know how they could catch Dove  Zachies," Mear explained. "They have had
  me in a room firing questions  at me since." 
  Johnny continued to study V. Venable Mear, as if to convince  himself of the man's exact position in the
  mysterious trend of events. 
  "One might say you are a private detective," Johnny said abruptly. 
  "A criminal psychologist," V. Venable Mear corrected; then he  reconsidered. "Maybe private detective is a
  general term which would  describe my present connection with this affair, if one did not want to  be too
  specific." 
  "And you were hired by a mysterious individual known as April  Fifth?" 
  "Correct." 
  "Who is April Fifth?" 
  "I have not the slightest idea," V. Venable Mear registered  curiosity "How did you learn all of this?" 
  "Retta Kenn told us." 
  "An estimable young lady. I am glad you learned what you did. I  fear you suspected me of being the Roar
  Devil." 
  Johnny did not admit or deny this, but nodded at V. Venable Mear.  "You seemed to have been shot during the
  raid on your house in New  York." 
  For answer, Mear opened his shirt. His shoulder was in bandages. 
  "Does that satisfy you?" he asked. 
  Renny boomed, "Lay off! Didn't we tell you Mayor Leland Ricketts is  the Roar Devil?" 
  A man in the door laughed, and said, "I hope your boss, Doc Savage,  is as sure of that as you are." 
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  71
  
  Monk looked at the man, who was one of the Roar Devil's gang. 
  "Better not wish that, guy," he said. "Doc might find a way to glom  onto your chief." 
  The other sneered. "Get wise to yourself, monkey knuckles." 
  "Wise?" Monk frowned. 
  "Sure," chuckled the other. "We've been taking you for a ride. The  Roar Devil is not Mayor Ricketts. We've
  been kidding you!" 
  Chapter XV. THE BREAK
  SILENCE followed the announcement that the Roar Devil was not His  Honor, Mayor Ricketts of Powertown.
  Monk, Ham and Renny seemed rather  firmly convinced on the point, probably due to what they had heard in
  the past. Johnny held his peace because he did not have enough  information to hold any convictions in any
  direction. 
  V. Venable Mear was quiet because he did not seem to feel good.  Once or twice, when he moved, he
  grimaced violently and felt of his  body tenderly, as if he had some bad bruises. 
  Unexpectedly, Johnny spoke. His words were not English, but a  queer, low, not unmusical guttural language. 
  V. Venable Mear eyed them. "I believe that was the Mayan dialect,  was it not?" 
  He was right. Johnny, Monk, Ham and Renny nearly fell over. It was  the first time in the so−called civilized
  world that they had ever  encountered a man who even knew what the language was, although they  were
  aware that there must be some. 
  The tongue was that of a lost race, the mighty ruling clan of the  ancient Mayan empire, a people lost for
  centuries. Doc Savage and his  men often spoke this Mayan tongue when they did not wish to be  understood. 
  "You understand Mayan?" Johnny demanded of V. Venable Mear. 
  "Not that Mayan," Mear said. "I was in Yucatan, and learned one of  the modern dialects." 
  "I'll speak that, then," Johnny said. 
  The gaunt archaeologist and geologist then launched into the  slurring syllables of the modern Mayan dialect,
  with which he and his  companions were also familiar. 
  "They gave me the usual searching," Johnny said. "They even pried  the heels loose from my shoes to see that
  there was nothing inside.  They did not, however, remove the buttons from my coat. The top buttons  and the
  bottom buttons, if crushed together, will burst into flame,  giving off a gas that will make a man senseless if
  he breathes it. The  gas is merged with the air and rendered harmless after a few seconds,  so that you can
  escape it by holding your breath." 
  "I know all about that," Monk said. "Doc worked out the formula for  the gas, and I helped him. You must
  shut your eyes, too. The stuff  kinda smarts if you don't." 
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  72
  
  "That guard at the door has the key to these locks," Renny boomed  in Mayan. "I am going to raise a fuss, and
  make him mad enough to come  over here and kick me or something. When he is over here, use the gas.  That
  way, we can get to him after he goes down. The way it is, we  couldn't reach him on account of these chains." 
  "Excellent," Johnny agreed. 
  The bony archeologist and geologist began to work carefully.  Without being discovered, he plucked buttons
  off his coat and carefully  crushed them on the concrete floor. It was necessary to have them  smashed into a
  fine powder, he explained quietly in Mayan. He made two  piles, which looked no different. 
  "I'm about ready," he said in Mayan. 
  Renny opened his mouth to start his yelling, then closed it. The  guard came down the stairs, followed by
  another man. The two of them  walked over to V. Venable Mear, put handcuffs on him, then unloosened  his
  chain. 
  "What − what's up?" V. Venable Mear asked nervously. 
  "That girl," said one of the men. "She's getting in the big−shot's  hair. He wants you to tell him a way of
  grabbing her." 
  V. Venable Mear yelled, "I won't!" 
  "So you think," the other snarled. 
  They took V. Venable Mear away. He turned at the door and said, "I  hope your scheme works." He said it in
  Mayan, rapidly. 
  The guard struck him a terrific blow, knocking him up the steps,  and snarling, "I'm getting tired of hearing
  that gobbling and clucking  among you guys!" 
  THE prisoners left behind were quiet for a time. They did not  exchange words, but it seemed mutually agreed
  that it might be best to  wait a little. 
  At length, Johnny said in Mayan, "We might as well try it now." 
  "I'll yell," said Renny. 
  The big−fisted engineer threw back his head and began to howl. His  yells were incredible. They all but tore
  the place apart. The guard,  who had been up the steps a few feet, came clattering down. 
  "Cut that out!" he gritted. 
  Renny only bawled the louder. 
  The guard ran toward them. He did not go to Renny, but to Johnny.  And he suddenly kicked the two piles of
  powdered chemicals apart,  scattering them on the floor. 
  "You guys must think I ain't got eyes," he snapped. "That foreign  gobble you were speakin' tipped me off!" 
  Renny said. disgustedly, "Oh, what awful luck!" 
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  73
  
  But it was not over. Johnny had been crouching on his heels and he  straightened suddenly, explosively, and
  butted the guard in the side.  The latter was not taken entirely by surprise, but he did not fathom  Johnny's true
  intention in time. 
  The guard was knocked back across the floor. 
  Monk was ready. He received the guard in two furry beams of arms.  The guard let out one agonized bleat,
  then Monk banged him on the  floor. They rolled. Monk's chain rattled. 
  The guard got his gun out and managed to shoot it three times. None  of the bullets hit anybody, but the noise
  sounded like a 16−inch rifle  in the chamber. Monk managed to knock the man's head against the  concrete
  floor, so that he became senseless. 
  Monk fought to get the keys to their shackles. 
  Feet clattered on the ladder. The shots had brought more of their  captors. Two, three, four of them. They
  came in cursing, and charged. 
  The keys were on a heavy ring and Monk threw them at the foremost  man. He hit the fellow in the face, but it
  only enraged the man. During  the next four or five minutes, they were handled roughly. 
  Handcuffs were put on their wrists. They were loosened from the  chains. 
  "We're moving you birds, "said one of the men. "Things are getting  hot. We don't want you found here." 
  THEY were led up and pushed, one at a time, into the fountain.  Coming up in the pool, they were hauled out,
  dripping water, and forced  to stand in the little artificial brook which ran across the lobby  floor. No doubt that
  was why the brook was there − so that persons  coming out of the pool would not drip water on the lobby
  floor, and  thus betray the secret entrance. 
  The occupants of the fake summer hotel surrounded them. They did  not seem to approve of the fact that the
  prisoners were still alive. 
  "They're dangerous," a man said. "They oughta be bumped." 
  "Roar Devil's orders are to keep 'em around," another informed him. 
  "Why?" 
  "On account of a very simple reason." 
  "Yeah?" 
  "These guys know all about this Doc Savage," the other said grimly.  "They can tell us things − things that
  will help put the grab on the  bronze guy." 
  "They won't talk." 
  "You bet they will!" the other grunted. "The Roar Devil knows all  about truth serum and things like that.
  They'll talk whether they wanna  or not." 
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  Chapter XV. THE BREAK
  74
  
  It became apparent that some of the men were to accompany the  prisoners, while another party was
  assembling out by the tennis courts.  A man appeared, bearing arms from some hiding place, and distributed
  them to this second party. 
  The purpose of the second group was apparently a mystery to at  least some of those who were to accompany
  Renny and the other  prisoners. 
  "What're they up to?" a man asked. 
  "The chief has got a scheme," a man replied. "We've got this Doc  Savage thinkin' Mayor Leland Ricketts is
  the Roar Devil. If we can  cinch that idea in the bronze guy's head, then croak Ricketts, we'll  have handed the
  bronze guy a dead cat. He'll think he's got the whole  thing wound up, especially after he finds his pals, here,
  croaked.  We'll croak 'em after Ricketts is dead. Then we'll all lay low until  the bronze guy goes off the job." 
  "What about the Dove Zachies angle?" 
  "Chief is all set to glom Zachies right away," chuckled the other.  "Once we get Zachies, everything will be
  jake." 
  A man glared at Monk, who was listening intently, and snarled,  "Pull in them big ears, you chimpanzee!" 
  Monk, on the point of making an angry retort, broke forth in a wide  grin. A man had come into the lobby
  leading a small animal by a chain.  The man limped, was wary of his charge. 
  It was the pig, Habeas Corpus. The fellow leading the shote carried  a long club, apparently to defend himself.
  Habeas was grunging angrily  and showing vicious−looking tusks. 
  "Say, are hog bites poison?" the man with the pig demanded. 
  Almost every one laughed at him. The prisoners were started off. 
  Monk, walking beside Ham, growled, "So Mayor Leland Ricketts ain't  the Roar Devil, after all." 
  Renny, following them, rumbled, "Lookit, you birds − maybe this  talk about Ricketts not being the brains is
  just a gag to throw us off.  Maybe he is their chief." 
  Somebody said, "Put the muffler on that gab, back there!" 
  There was some excitement as the pig, Habeas, bit some one and the  victim demanded the satisfaction of
  shooting the porker, which seemed  only to amuse every one. 
  It was obvious that the shote had made a hit because of his  grotesque appearance and his willingness to fight
  all of the time. The  pig was something with which to pass time. 
  "My vote goes to Ricketts as being their chief," Monk whispered, a  little later. 
  Ham frowned at him much as a teacher would at a distressingly  ignorant scholar. 
  "Haven't you caught on yet who the Roar Devil is?" he asked. 
  Monk scowled. "Have you?" 
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  75
  
  "Yes," said Ham. "I am absolutely positive." 
  Monk continued scowling, then appeared to decide that Ham was  trying to rib him, for he affected disinterest
  and changed the subject. 
  "I wonder," he pondered aloud, "what Doc is doing?" 
  Chapter XVI. THE UNSUCCESSFUL SURRENDER
  DOC SAVAGE, at that particular moment, was being roundly  criticized. This was, unusual. He had not been
  criticized for a long  time, because, to most individuals, his methods were quite amazing and  left nothing to be
  desired. 
  Retta Kenn seemed to see considerable wrong with the way he was  doing things. 
  "You are going around in circles and not accomplishing anything!"  the girl snapped. 
  Doc Savage pretended not to hear her. He stripped off his coat and  wrung it out. It gave up almost a quart of
  water which ran over the  floor of Mayor Leland Ricketts's office in the Powertown Municipal  Office
  Building. 
  "You're all wet!" the young woman snapped. "Where have you been?  What have you been doing?" 
  Doc Savage took off his vest and wrung that out. 
  "It's been at least two hours since you heard your man Johnny yell  for assistance over the radio," the young
  woman clipped angrily. "You  haven't done a thing about it. Doesn't the welfare of your five  assistants mean
  anything to you?" 
  "Four," Doc corrected. "The fifth man − Major Thomas J. Roberts,  better known as Long Tom − is abroad." 
  "Well, if he was here, the Roar Devil would have him by now," the  young woman said cattily. "And you are
  the fellows who have half the  crooks in the world scared of them. A fine bunch of flat tires you  turned out to
  be!" 
  "Oh, you give everybody a headache!" Flagler D'Aughtell snapped  suddenly. 
  He was standing in the background, and he had been silent until  now. 
  The girl frowned at him, and asked, "Who pulled your string?" 
  The Powertown chief of police, a fat man without any hair on top of  his head but plenty around the sides,
  came in. 
  "We have the entire Powertown police force and the New York State  troopers looking for Mayor Leland
  Ricketts," he said. "So far, no one  has seen him." 
  He went out. 
  Doc Savage looked at the girl and said, "Have you been taking  things into your own hands? I told you not to
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  76
  
  say anything about Mayor  Ricketts." 
  She sniffed at him. 
  "And let Ricketts get away scot−free?" she demanded. "Not much! If  you're too uppity to accept help from
  the police, I'm not. How do you  know? Maybe a cop might grab Ricketts. Then we'd have the Roar Devil." 
  "And so you told the police to look for Ricketts, while I was, er −  getting wet?" Doc Savage queried. 
  "Sure," she said. "And you don't seem to like it, and so what?" 
  Flagler D'Aughtell spoke up again. 
  "Perhaps we could have her put in jail," he suggested. 
  "An idea," Doc agreed. 
  The girl flung back her head and laughed heartily. "I've convinced  the chief of police that I'm innocent as the
  flowers in May." 
  She seemed very cheerful, as if the more trouble she could stir up,  the better she would like it. 
  Unexpectedly, her face became blank. She stared at the door, her  mouth open. 
  A man had sidled in furtively. 
  He was a man who had been a fighter once, for there were mounds of  gristle about his eyes, and his nose was
  flat and his ears were not as  nature had made them originally. He looked mean, but not stupid. 
  "Stupe Davin!" exploded the girl. 
  Doc Savage looked the man ever without much evidence of great  interest, and said, "I believe you told me
  Stupe Davin was one of Dove  Zachies's men?" 
  "His bodyguard," snapped the girl. She glared at Davin. "What do  you want?" 
  She took an automatic pistol out of a pocket of her frock and  pointed it at Stupe Davin. 
  "Fresh wren!" he scowled at her. "Somebody is gonna push you down  plenty before you're through with
  this!" 
  Doc Savage said, "You have something on your mind?" 
  Stupe Davin eyed the bronze man. What he saw seemed to make him  uneasy, for he nervously moved his feet
  and swallowed several times. 
  "It ain't on my mind," he said. "It's on Dove's." 
  "Yes?" The bronze man did not seem particularly concerned. 
  "Dove Is scared," said Stupe Davin. "He's scared until he's ready  to lay eggs!" 
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  "Unless I am mistaken," the bronze man said, "he has been scared  all along." 
  Davin nodded. "He's worse now. He wants to talk to you." 
  "What about?" 
  "A deal." Stupe Davin sounded earnest "Dove will shoot straight  with you this time." 
  "He couldn't shoot straight with anybody," Retta Kenn put in. "He's  too crooked." 
  "Dry up," growled Stupe Davin. "I'll put my fist down your throat!" 
  The girl laughed. 
  Flagler D'Aughtell said nervously, "I don't like this. That Dove  Zachies is supposed to be a very clever and
  unscrupulous crook." 
  Doc asked Stupe Davin, "You will take us to Dove Zachies?" 
  "I sure will," gulped Davin. 
  "All right," Doc said. "We'll go now." 
  "Count me out!" snapped Retta Kenn. "I'm not entirely crazy!" 
  "Ditto here," echoed D'Aughtell, fear on his haggard face. 
  Doc Savage moved − moved more suddenly than it seemed possible he  could have. The girl's automatic was
  unexpectedly in his hand. He  pocketed it. 
  "You are going along," he said, "whether you like it or not." 
  The girl screamed, "Say, you big cheese! Do you still think I m a  crook?" 
  "You are going." Doc turned on D'Aughtell. "You can do what you  want." 
  "I'll go," D'Aughtell said promptly. He looked more disreputable,  more like a bum, than ever. 
  "I got a heap waitin' down the street," said burly, ugly Stupe  Davin. 
  THEY met Dove Zachies in a pleasant little cream cottage in the  middle of an apple orchard, the trees of
  which were in bloom. It was an  idyllic little spot, one which hardly looked the part of a gang  hideout. But a
  close observer could have noted that the windows were  thick bulletproof glass, the innocent−looking shutters
  outside were of  armor steel, as was the door. 
  Dove Zachies smiled and bowed, and his bobbing up and down,  together with his naturally peaceful
  appearance, somehow brought the  thought of a plump park pigeon being fed corn. 
  "I am glad to see you," he said earnestly. "Indeed I am. Drink?" 
  "It might be poisoned," snapped the girl. 
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  78
  
  Dove Zachies registered disgust in a mild way and inquired, "Was it  necessary to bring her along? She gets in
  my hair." 
  "She gets in every one's hair," Doc told him. "What is on your  mind?" 
  "I am scared," Dove Zachies said. "This Roar Devil, as you know,  caught my men when they were attacking
  V. Venable Mear's house. Almost  my entire organization was in that attack. The Roar Devil got them all.
  What he did with them, I do not know. I do not think he killed them,  but I cannot be sure. At any rate, I am
  almost alone. These are all I  have left." 
  He waved a deprecating arm to indicate Stupe Davin and half a dozen  other vicious−looking gentlemen who
  had gathered in the room. These  gentlemen did not look as if they liked the situation. But there were  no guns
  in sight. 
  "It was by the rarest good fortune that I did not lead that attack  on V. Venable Mear's house," said Dove
  Zachies. "In which case I would  have been taken, and it would all be over." 
  "Just what is back of this conference?" Doc asked. 
  "I love my life," Zachies smiled wryly. "You can save it for me.  You want the Roar Devil. I can help you get
  him. We can make a deal." 
  "I preserve your life, and you help me," Doc replied. "Is that it?" 
  "A little more than that," Zachies corrected. 
  "How much more?" 
  "The Roar Devil is after something of mine," Zachies said.  "Something that I have hidden. I must have your
  word that I am to  retain this." 
  "You mean you want to keep the thing in the cache?" 
  "Exactly," Zachies agreed. "And you must promise not to try to  learn its nature." 
  "No," Doc Savage stated promptly. 
  Dove Zachies did not seem surprised. 
  "Then I and my men will surrender to you," he said. "We give up." 
  Doc Savage reached in a pocket. He brought out a glass bulb larger  than a pigeon egg. He smashed it on the
  floor. When the bulb broke, a  liquid splattered, but evaporated almost instantaneously. 
  Doc Savage held his breath. 
  Those in the room − all of them − seemed to go asleep on their  feet. They made considerable noise falling to
  the floor. The girl, near  the door, tried to run, but did not get outside before she, too,  collapsed. 
  DOC SAVAGE moved as if he were in no great hurry, and knew exactly  what he was doing. He got materials
  with which to bind them − strips  torn from a rug, wires off a clothes line, and adhesive tape from a  medicine
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  79
  
  cabinet. Then he went to work. 
  When he stood back to survey the job, it was quite evident that  Dove Zachies, Stupe Davin and the rest of
  them would never get free of  their own volition. 
  Retta Kenn was not bound. Neither was Flagler D'Aughtell. 
  Doc Savage picked the girl and D'Aughtell up and carried them out  to the car in which they had come −
  Stupe Davin's car. He seemed in no  particular hurry as he started the motor and drove toward Powertown. 
  Once he stopped the car and seemed to be thinking deeply. His small  trilling sound came out, but in a vagrant
  sort of way, as if the thing  which had provoked it was some conclusion not entirely new, but rather  one
  already fully recognized. 
  The car was in motion again when the girl and D'Aughtell awakened.  They aroused themselves rather
  quickly, and seemed to suffer no bad  effects. 
  "What was that stuff?" the girl asked. 
  "An anaesthetic gas," Doc told her. "I have used it for a number of  years." 
  "But didn't it get you?" 
  "You escape it by holding your breath." 
  She snapped, "You might have told us." 
  Flagler D'Aughtell asked, "What about Dove Zachies and what is left  of his gang?" 
  Doc Savage tooled the car around a corner. It was a big machine,  quiet and fast. The day had turned out
  warm. The balmy spring breezes  whipped the unbuttoned collar of the bronze man's shirt, but, strangely
  enough, did not disturb his metallic hair. 
  "We will tell the police about Zachies," he said finally. 
  The girl snapped at Doc, "You double−crossed them!" as if he had  committed some crime. 
  "You will distinctly recall that I promised them nothing," he  reminded her. 
  They reached the Powertown police station, and Doc Savage informed  the chief that Dove Zachies, who
  knew much about the mysterious earth  tremors menacing the big dam above Powertown, could be found at
  the  cream house in the apple orchard. The police charged off in three squad  cars. 
  Doc, finding them missing when he went back to the car, went  hunting the girl and D'Aughtell. He found the
  girl posing for a  newspaper photographer, and located D'Aughtell in the Municipal Office  Building lunch
  room, consuming a sandwich. 
  "The Roar Devil's men didn't feed me any too well," explained  D'Aughtell. "It is hungry like a wolf that l
  am." 
  An hour later, the police were back with bad news. 
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  "Dove Zachies and the others were gone!" the chief yelled. 
  DURING the next hour, Doc Savage conducted himself as if he had all  of the time in the world; indeed, as if
  there was nothing of particular  importance afoot. This aggravated Retta Kenn. 
  "Your bungling lost us Dove Zachies!" she accused. "You could have  brought him and his men back in the
  car. Why'd you overcome them in the  first place? They had surrendered, hadn't they?" 
  Doc said nothing. 
  "I think you're a dumb cluck," the young woman said cheerfully. 
  Doc Savage scowled at her. This was unusual, because he was noted  for the degree of calm which he
  managed to maintain on all occasions.  But he was not accustomed to having a young woman around sticking
  verbal pins into him. 
  "I did not want Dove Zachies on my hands!" he said sharply. 
  The young woman looked at him intently, then began to laugh. 
  "Hah!" she snapped cheerfully. "I thought so! You've got some  black, vile plan up your sleeve. But you
  shouldn't have sent Dove  Zachies to his death." 
  "The Roar Devil will not kill Dove Zachies," Doc told her. "He will  make Dove show him where the cache
  is." 
  "Ah, the mystery cache," said the young woman. "Now tell me what is  in it" 
  Doc ignored her. 
  D'Aughtell had been listening, and now he shook his head, got up,  and murmured, "This, what is behind this
  trouble, it is a great mystery  to me." 
  They were in the police chief's office. A box of cigars stood on  the chief's desk, open. D'Aughtell walked
  over, took one of these,  found a match, strode to the window and reached up to strike the match  on the iron
  lock of the window. The match popped alight and he brought  the flame − clang! 
  Glass fell out of the window. A bullet made a buzz and snap in the  room. 
  D'Aughtell shrieked and fell flat on the floor. A series of  agonized moans came from his lips and a scarlet
  worm came creeping out  from under his body. 
  Chapter XVII. MAYOR RICKETTS
  DOC SAVAGE jerked one of the glass anaesthetic bulbs from his  pocket and dropped it on the floor, holding
  his breath as the ball  shattered. 
  The girl, Retta Kenn, taken completely by surprise by the colorless  and odorless gas, went to sleep on her feet
  and fell heavily. 
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  D'Aughtell ceased his moaning and twitching an instant later. 
  Doc Savage spun through rooms, making for the doorway. There was  shouting in some of the rooms, stirred
  up by the shot. But Doc was out  of the building without encountering a cop, or seeing any one. 
  The Municipal Office Building sat back from the sidewalk, with a  strip of grass and shrubbery along the
  sides. The bronze man got behind  an ornamental hedge, followed it to the corner, and ran behind a  passing
  car, across the street. 
  The driver of the car, not knowing what it was all about and amazed  by the apparition of a giant bronze man
  running beside his machine,  completely forgot his handling of the wheel and ran into a telephone  pole. The
  bumper of his car and part of the radiator caved in, and the  windshield fell out, after which the motorist got
  out and began to  swear. 
  Doc Savage went on toward the one spot from which the shot could  have come − an automobile dealer's
  establishment across the street. He  did not try to enter the place, but centered efforts on getting a look  at the
  alley behind and the adjacent streets. Doc had moved fast.  Unless the gunman had moved with unusual speed,
  there had not been  enough time for him to get away. 
  There was a man running down a side street away from the automobile  dealer's establishment. The man was
  not running fast, but trotting,  rather. 
  The man had on a checkered sport coat and wore a cap, and there was  one of those ample and flashy yellow
  sport mufflers tied around his  neck. His trousers were brown, his shoes brown and white check. He was  a
  bulky man. His dress was that of a sporty summer visitor. 
  Doc Savage ran after him. 
  The man in sport clothes saw him. The discovery was made without  the fellow turning − he had a small
  pocket mirror, and he apparently  used that to look over his shoulder without swinging, so that his face  might
  be seen. 
  He began to run more swiftly. And he hurriedly whipped the yellow  muffler up so that it covered the lower
  part of his face. It was  obvious that he had previously knotted the muffler to make it just the  length for this
  purpose. 
  "You!" Doc rapped. "You can't get away!" 
  The man turned suddenly. He had a gun in his hand; it spouted lead  and noise down the street. 
  Doc Savage sought shelter with more haste than he had intended  employing. The other man was shooting
  from the hip, and there was  almost an uncanny accuracy in his marksmanship. 
  A bullet hit the bronze man almost squarely over the heart, but the  bulletproof undergarment which he
  habitually wore took care of that.  Other slugs made ugly sounds close to his ears. 
  Unexpectedly, a bullet brought Doc down. 
  DOC controlled his fall, slamming forward so that he landed in the  concrete−floored ravine of a driveway
  which led up into a yard. Without  stirring more than necessary, he took stock of the damage. 
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  The lead had come through the chain−mail shorts which he wore to  protect his legs down to the knees. The
  mail was light stuff, in order  that it might be worn under his business suit without betraying its  presence, and
  the man down the street was using a foreign automatic  which fired a cartridge having almost the
  characteristics of rifle  ammunition. 
  The bullet had landed a nasty shock, and had torn the flesh some.  But it had not put the leg out of
  commission. 
  Doc Savage crawled up the driveway, got behind the house and began  to run through lawns to head off his
  quarry. He ran erratically for a  while, then got better control over the leg. He caught sight of the man  in the
  sport suit. 
  The fellow was loping along without any great pretense at haste. He  seemed to have the idea that he had
  stopped pursuit. He looked back  often. 
  He saw Doc Savage. Discovery of the bronze man reacted on the  fugitive much as discovery of a hound at his
  heels would affect a  grazing rabbit. He was off like the proverbial shot. 
  The chase became a wild thing. Doc Savage did not show himself more  than necessary. The other man
  emptied his gun time after time. 
  They got down into the factory district. There were many big brick  buildings, usually with small watchman
  turrets or booths at the  entrances. 
  Out of one of these turrets, some distance ahead of the fugitive  gunman, sprang a uniformed watchman. He
  was a lean, weather−beaten  fellow, and he waved his arms and yelled. There was a gun in one of his  hands. 
  The man in the sport suit snapped a shot at the watchman. It  missed. The checkered coat popped around the
  most convenient corner. He  had changed his course, as if to avoid the watchman. 
  The watchman cursed shrilly, ran to the corner, raised his gun and  took a deliberate aim. Reports came from
  his weapon in a measured  volley. 
  He was shooting down an alley. A gun banged from the alley in  return. The watchman ducked back. He
  charged his gun with fresh  cartridges, stepped out recklessly and fired once. He seemed ready to  fire more
  bullets, but did not. He was standing blowing smoke out of  the barrel of his weapon when Doc Savage came
  up. 
  "You saw it, gov'nor," he said. "The punk tried to pop me off!" 
  Doc Savage said nothing, but looked into the alley. A man in a  checkered coat, a cap, brown pants, a pair of
  brown and white check  shoes, and with a yellow neck cloth over the lower part of his face,  lay in the alley.
  He was not moving. 
  "I hope the cops see that it was self−defense," said the watchman. 
  Doc looked at him. "Was it?" 
  The other seemed slightly worried. "Well, the guy did shoot at me,  but I also chased him, and that might
  make it look − " 
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  83
  
  "Forget it," Doc said, and walked down the alley and took a closer  look at the man in the sport suit. 
  One bullet had gone through the checkered cap and the head inside  it. There was only the one wound, but that
  one was enough to have  killed instantly. 
  "Who was he − a hijacker?" demanded the watchman. 
  Without answering, Doc Savage reached down and stripped the yellow  neck cloth from the features of the
  dead man. 
  The watchman took one look. He grew white. He seemed about to fall  over. 
  The dead man in the sport suit was Mayor Leland Ricketts, of  Powertown. 
  THE watchman seemed to know his honor by sight. He trembled and  wiped his forehead. He seemed to be
  trying to swallow. 
  "I sure got myself in a crack!" he wailed. "What'm I gonna do?" 
  "The dead man was trying to kill you, you said," Doc Savage told  him. 
  "Yeah, I know − but, gleeps! A mayor! Croaking a mayor ain't like  it was just some ordinary punk who had
  held up a store or something." 
  "From all appearances it was perfectly justified," Doc informed  him. 
  The watchman seemed to take heart from that. He speared a cigarette  between his lips and ignited it with a
  shaky hand. The match burned his  fingers before he thought to drop it, however. He buttonholed Doc  Savage
  eagerly. 
  "Listen," he gulped. "You stick by me, see? Tell the cops how it  was. I got my pistol permit and my license as
  a special cop, like  watchmen get. But this thing of poppin' off a mayor − I'll need all the  front I can get.
  Suppose you put in for me, will you?" 
  "I will do everything to see that you get justice," Doc Savage told  him. 
  A police siren was caterwauling. The police radio car pulled up,  occupied by two officers. One of them stood
  and swore and asked  questions, while the other ran to a telephone and called more officers. 
  Doc Savage explained what had happened. His word carried weight, it  seemed, for what he said was taken
  without argument. 
  The story the girl, Retta Kenn, had told about his honor, Mayor  Leland Ricketts, lent weight to Doc Savage's
  recital. 
  "Ricketts was this Roar Devil," the police chief said. "There isn't  much doubt of it. He tried to croak you,
  Savage. Must have mistaken  D'Aughtell for you in my office at the Municipal Office Building. He  shot, saw
  his mistake, then ran." 
  "What about me?" the watchmen asked nervously. 
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  84
  
  "You dictate a statement to the D. A.," directed the policeman.  "Then we'll see about getting you your
  medal." 
  The watchman had pleasure on his weather−beaten face. 
  Doc Savage separated a taxi driver from the crowd that had gathered  about the scene and had the man take
  him back to the Municipal Office  Building. 
  Retta Kenn still lay where she had fallen on the floor. Her regular  breathing indicated she had not come out
  from under the effects of the  anaesthetic. 
  Flagler D'Aughtell, the inventor who looked like a bum, was nowhere  in sight. 
  In front of the window where D'Aughtell had fallen after the shot,  was a smear of red. Doc Savage was
  bending over this, studying it with  a small but powerful microscope when the girl awakened and sat up. 
  "You sure do things in a queer manner," she said, sarcastically.  "What are you looking for in that pool of
  blood?" 
  "It is not blood," Doc Savage told her. "It is ordinary olive oil  colored with a red dye." 
  THE girl must have thought she was still suffering from the effects  of the gas, and hearing things. She rubbed
  a hand over her eyes. 
  "You kidding me?" she demanded. 
  "D'Aughtell must have had the colored oil in a bottle inside his  coat," Doc Savage said. "He broke it, or
  pulled the cork out, when he  fell. He wanted to make it look good." 
  "I'm getting dizzy!" Retta Kenn gasped. "D'Aughtell was − " 
  "As crooked as they come," Doc Savage told her. "His acting ability  was considerable, too. Had it been
  necessary to depend only on his  conduct to find him out, he might have fooled me." 
  The young woman got up, went over to the stream of fresh air coming  in through the hole that the bullet had
  made in the window, and took  several deep breaths. She turned around and looked at the bronze man. 
  "I am sure D'Aughtell was just what he pretended to be," she said.  "He was an unfortunate inventor whom the
  Roar Devil had seized and  forced to make explosives." 
  Doc Savage said nothing. He rolled up his trousers leg and began to  bandage the slight wound which he had
  suffered in the chase. It had  bled a little. 
  The girl came over, looking concerned, saw how slight the injury  was, sniffed as if she wished it had been
  something of consequence, and  backed away. 
  "Well!" she snapped. "Aren't you going to argue about D'Aughtell?" 
  "Your convictions are of no great concern to me," the bronze man  told her. 
  "I could cut your throat," she said, and walked farther away. 
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  85
  
  It was obvious from her attitude that she intended to have nothing  more to say. Doc Savage began talking. 
  "We found D'Aughtell in the yard of Mayor Ricketts's estate," the  bronze man said. "D'Aughtell lay near a
  sun dial, against which he said  he had knocked himself senseless when he fell. That much was the truth,
  probably." 
  "I'm not interested in your theories," said the young woman. 
  Doc Savage went on as if he had not heard her. 
  "His story about the Roar Devil's men bringing him along when they  went to guard Rickets home was too
  thin," he said. "Why should they do  that? I went back and dived into the Ricketts swimming pool." 
  "So that's how you got wet!" the girl interposed. 
  "In the swimming pool, I found the apparatus which produces those  intervals of silence," Doc Savage said.
  D'Aughtell was undoubtedly  operating it during the attack on Ricketts's house. When I used those  gas bombs,
  he saw the jig was up. The wind must have carried the gas  toward him. It was blowing from the house toward
  the pool. 
  "D'Aughtell must have gotten scared. He threw his apparatus in the  pool, then tried to run away. The gas
  made him groggy, and he fell and  hit the sun dial with his head. When we found him, he trumped up his  story
  to throw suspicion from himself." 
  The girl seemed, for some reason or other, to find that a sizable  and unpleasant pill to down. She stared at the
  bronze man, made angry  faces at him, and seemed not to know what to do next. 
  "You might have told me!" she snapped. "What kind of a thingamabob  was that contraption you found in the
  swimming pool?" 
  "It had been smashed to pieces," Doc Savage told her. "No doubt  D'Aughtell did that before putting it in the
  pool, in order that no one  finding it might be able to tell how it worked." 
  "Then you don't know what it is yet?" 
  The bronze man did not answer that. He seemed entirely concerned  with bandaging his leg. 
  "You give me a pain," she told him. 
  DOC SAVAGE finished giving first−aid to himself, dropped his  trousers leg, stood up and was testing the leg
  before the young woman  seemed to think of something else to say. 
  "What happened to the man who shot D'Aughtell?" she asked. 
  "D'Aughtell wasn't shot," Doc told her. 
  "All right," she said sharply. "There was a shot. A gun went off.  What happened to whoever made the gun go
  off?" 
  Doc Savage told her about the chase and its termination. He told  her exactly what he had seen, and no more. 
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  86
  
  "And when I took the yellow muffler off the dead man's face, it was  Mayor Leland Ricketts," he said in
  finishing. 
  Retta Kenn looked cheerful, and vastly relieved. She made a gesture  of throwing things off her shoulders. 
  "So that's that," she said. "The Roar Devil is dead." 
  "No," Doc Savage corrected. 
  She blinked at him. "Mean to say you've been fooling me again?" 
  "The man who fired the shot and ran was not Mayor Leland Ricketts,"  Doc Savage said. "He was a man, one
  of the Roar Devil's men, dressed in  clothes exactly like those Mayor Ricketts was wearing." 
  "How do you know that?" 
  "Observation," the bronze man told her. "The man did not run  exactly like Mayor Ricketts would have run.
  And the shooting at  D'Aughtell was sour. It was just to get my attention." 
  "You mean it was a trick?" 
  "Right. A trick to make us think the Roar Devil was dead." 
  The girl frowned at him. 
  "Much as I hate to admit it, you seem to know all, see all. May I  compliment you?" 
  "I made one very bad mistake," Doc told her. "Wouldn't you like to  know about that?" 
  She grinned at him. "I didn't know you ever made mistakes. What was  it?" 
  "In not making sure D'Aughtell had been overcome by the anaesthetic  gas here in the office," Doc told her.
  "He must have seen me break the  glass bulb, and held his breath. He was very smooth." 
  "Hm−m−m." She rubbed her nose thoughtfully. "And this watchman who  killed − " 
  "He did not kill any one," Doc said. "Mayor Ricketts was already  dead, his body hidden in the alley. The man
  I was chasing merely ducked  out of sight, while the watchman was shooting into the air." 
  "Then the watchman is − " 
  "Due for quite a surprise," Doc Savage told her. 
  Chapter XVIII. RENDEZVOUS
  IF the watchman in question had any inkling that he might be headed  for a surprise, his deportment gave no
  sign of it. He was being  questioned by the district attorney and his answers were quick and  frank. 
  "How long have you been employed at your present job?" he was  asked. 
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  87
  
  "That's what worried me," the watchman said gloomily. "I just went  to work today. But look − I got swell
  references." 
  The questioning continued, and a policeman came in, saying, "We got  a telephone call for a Thomas Ross." 
  "That's me," said the watchman hastily. "Is it all right for me to  go out and talk?" 
  "Sure," he was told. 
  The statement was being taken at the factory where Thomas Ross was  employed, therefore, he could talk over
  the telephone with no great  fear that the line had been tapped. 
  "Yeah," he said into the mouthpiece. 
  "I have it some orders for you," said a rapid voice, which had a  trace of an accent. 
  The watchman recognized it instantly. 
  "D'Aughtell!" he exploded. "Ain't it kinda risky, you callin' me?" 
  "That may be, but it is necessary," the voice of the other told  him. "It is not so good that things are going.
  This Doc Savage is maybe  smell the rat." 
  "How do you figure?" The watchman sounded worried. "My end went off  all right. He thinks I killed Mayor
  Ricketts and that Ricketts was the  Roar Devil. He ain't got the slightest idea that Ricketts was already  dead in
  that alley before I started shootin'." 
  "It is not so sure that I am," the other grumbled. "We did it the  good job in framing Mayor Ricketts, with
  guns that we hide in his  house, and the note that we fake on his typewriter. But I am not so  sure." 
  "You got orders for me?" asked the watchman abruptly. "I can't  stand here gossipin'. The cops may get an
  itch. You got any orders,  D'Aughtell?" 
  "Orders I have, and plenty of them," said D'Aughtell. "You are to  clear out as soon as you can." 
  "Is that − " 
  "Maybe not necessary, but the Roar Devil is not take the chance,"  said the other voice. "You will go to Spring
  and Metropolitan streets.  You know where that is?" 
  "Sure" 
  "A guy will be parked m a yellow coupé there. He's one of the  big−shots specials, see, this guy is. The guy is
  just come up from the  city and don't know where the chief is. You take him to the chief. The  chief has special
  work for this guy, and he wants him there in a hurry.  You understand it all I am telling?" 
  "Yeah. What about you, D'Aughtell?" 
  "Me, you will not see." The other receiver clicked up. 
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  88
  
  THE watchman finished dictating his statement as if nothing,  nothing at all, had happened to interrupt the
  routine of his first  day's work. But at the end of the interview he apparently thought of  something, because he
  began to act nervous. By the time it was over, he  was feigning a mild case of the shakes. 
  "I feel kinda jittery," he told his chief. "This is the first guy I  ever killed, and it's kinda got me. How about me
  takin' the rest of the  day off." 
  He was told that he could have the rest of the day to himself. 
  "i'm goin' fishin'," the man said. "I think that'll straighten out  my nerves better'n anything." 
  Under the pretense of going fishing, he turned up at the  intersection of Spring and Metropolitan. It was a busy
  corner, with two  drug stores, a bank and a department store. 
  The yellow coupé was parked with a lot of other cars, but it was  the only machine of its particular canary hue.
  The erstwhile watchman  walked past it to get a look at the driver. 
  The driver was worth a second look. At first glance, he seemed near  seventy years old, and he might have
  been mistaken for the proprietor  of a medicine show. He had long white hair, a wrinkled and almost
  paper−white face of considerable area and two enormous ears. He wore a  flowing ascot tie, and a large,
  broad−brimmed black hat. 
  Altogether he was a picturesque figure. He was smoking an enormous  pipe with a white china bowl. 
  The watchman came over, put foot on the running board and in a  tough voice said, "Ain't I seen you before?" 
  This got a brisk reaction from the old fellow who looked like a  medicine show owner. He moved suddenly,
  and the watchman was looking  into the muzzle of a big single−action six−shooter. The hand holding  the gun
  was very white, and had several brown warts on it, but it was  steady. 
  "Nobody but coppers walk up with questions like that," snarled the  white−haired one. "I'm waiting for a guy
  and I ain't gonna be chased  off. Get in here and keep your trap shut or I'll blow your head off." 
  The watchman got into the coupé. Then he laughed. 
  "I'm Thomas Ross," he said. 
  "The devil you are?" snarled the other. 
  "Maybe you was waitin' for me?" 
  "Maybe I was." The driver yanked his black hat over his eyes,  stepped on the starter and the car moved out
  into traffic. The car  sounded as if it were about worn out. 
  The watchman − Thomas Ross was probably not his real name − studied  his companion with great interest.
  When they had covered half a mile, a  strange expression overspread the watchman's face. He grew tense. His
  hand drifted uneasily for the revolver which he carried. 
  The old gentleman who looked like a patent medicine faker, asked  unexpectedly, "What's got into you?" 
  "That white hair − it's a wig!" the watchman snarled. 
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  "What of it?" growled the other. "Think I want these rubes to get a  gander at my real puss? Shut up, take your
  hand away from your gun, and  tell me where I go. I got hot business with the big one." 
  THE road was really no road at all, but two steep tracks which  dodged trees up the steep foot of the giant
  black stone mountain which  was the most prominent feature of the terrain around Powertown. The  radiator
  bubbled and steam spouted around the cap. A carbon knock in  the motor sounded as if several men were
  working on it with small  hammers. 
  "Some chariot," said the watchman, disgustedly. 
  "Is it much farther?" asked the man with the white hair and big  black hat. 
  "Not much." 
  The car climbed over a boulder. A tire blew out. The watchman  swore, and did not do his share of the work
  of changing tires. The  white−haired man with the appearance of a patent medicine faker, when  he got out of
  the car, seemed unable to straighten. He was a pronounced  humpback. 
  The watchman eyed him curiously. An idea seemed to occur to him. 
  "Say!" he grunted, 
  "Yes?" grunted the white−haired one. 
  "Lot of us ain't never seen the Roar Devil," said the watchman.  "Take me, for instance. I don't know 'im by
  sight. I was just  thinkin'." 
  "Thinkin' what?" 
  "You might be the Roar Devil yourself." 
  The other only scowled and jerked the black hat lower. They  finished the tire changing in silence, and the
  little yellow coupé  lurched on, groaning, steaming, knocking. 
  They passed a spot where most of the mountain side had changed  position. There had been a slide of
  considerable importance here. Huge  blocks of stone were scattered about. It looked as if the disturbance  were
  recent. 
  "Landslide?" grunted the man driving. 
  "No," said the watchman. "That's where the boys set off a dozen  quarts of trinitrotoluene − T. N. T. They
  were hoping to open up Dove  Zachies's cache." 
  "They sure it's in this mountain?" the other queried. 
  "They're pretty certain. They got two of Dove Zachies's men when  this first started, and tortured information
  out of them. Both said it  was this mountain. But they didn't know the exact spot. There was  nothin' to do but
  for us to start blasting, in hopes of opening up the  spot. It's a cave, we think." 
  The coupé jumped another boulder and another tire blew out. 
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  "No more spares," grumbled the driver. 
  "Devil of a note," said the other. "Well, we can walk. It ain't  much farther." 
  They walked. The white−haired man seemed to have considerable  difficulty with his back. He grumbled and
  complained and had to stop  frequently. 
  They came to what must have been, in years past, a lumber mill. It  had gone to ruin. There was one log
  building which had not fallen down.  It seemed, at first, that the place was deserted, but when they were  close,
  a man came out with a submachine gun. 
  "Where's everybody?" the watchman asked him. 
  The man waved an arm. "Up on the hill. They're going to town on  this job right now." 
  "Yeah? How come?" 
  "They got Dove Zachies," said the man who had been in the decrepit  building. "They made him talk. Dove is
  gonna show where his cache is.  Everybody went up to see the excitement." 
  "Excitement?" 
  "Yeah." The man with the submachine gun chuckled. "They took all of  the prisoners along − you know, them
  pals of Doc Savage, and the  others. They're gonna croak the whole lot together, along with Dove  Zachies.
  Gonna put what T. N. T. we've got left under 'em and blow 'em  up. The concussion will probably break that
  big dam above Powertown,  and during the excitement, we'll all clear out. That'll polish the  business off." 
  "A darb of a scheme," said the watchman. "Tell me where the chief  went, will you? This guy I got with me is
  somebody important to the  boss. Wants to see him right away." 
  The other was unsuspicious. He pointed. "Head due north and you'll  catch 'em. They ain't been gone long." 
  THE north course proved to be a rocky one. Twice more, they passed  great pits in the side of the mountain,
  spots from which thousands of  tons of stone had been pushed by the force of powerful explosive. 
  "More places where they tried to spot Dove Zachies's cache," said  the erstwhile watchman. "We sure done
  some tall huntin'. But at the  same time, we was tryin' to glom onto Zachies." 
  The humpbacked, white−haired man said nothing. He muttered and sat  down frequently to rest, but despite
  that, they must have traveled  faster than those ahead, because they perceived the party before long −  a group
  of fully thirty men, toiling up the precipitous side of the  rock−strewn mountain. 
  The prisoners could be seen, shackled. Some of the captors were  carrying large boxes and being very careful
  about it. That would be the  trinitrotoluene − the T. N. T. 
  The watchman quickened his pace. 
  "I'm gonna yell at 'em," he said. "Have 'em wait for us." 
  He threw back his head. The yell never passed his lips. A strangled  gasp did. He slouched forward on his
  face. The white−haired, humpbacked  man had struck him a terrific blow from behind, knocking him
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  senseless. 
  The man hurriedly jerked off his white wig. Some brisk rubbing  removed the wrinkle and dye make−up from
  his features. He wriggled out  of the harness which had lent him the humpbacked aspect. 
  The gentleman who had resembled a medicine show proprietor became  Doc Savage. 
  Retta Kenn crept up from behind and stopped. 
  "What a tough ride I had hiding in the back of that coupé," she  complained. "Whew! 
  Chapter XIX. CACHE
  DOC SAVAGE produced a hypodermic needle, filled it with a drug  which would make the victim
  unconscious for many hours, and used it on  the former watchman. 
  Retta Kenn said, "I tied into that fellow at the old lumber camp  back there. Knocked him out and made him
  swallow enough sleeping  powders to keep him out for a while." 
  "That was risky," Doc told her. "You might have ruined our plans." 
  She laughed, and did not seem at all concerned. She appeared, in  fact, very happy about the whole thing,
  enjoying herself hugely. 
  "This is rich," she said. "This fellow here never even dreamed you  were not D'Aughtell when you called. Say,
  that was a swell job you did  of imitating D'Aughtell's voice. But I was afraid he'd see through the  make−up.
  You can't fool a man at close range in broad daylight with  make−up." 
  "He wasn't fooled," Doc told her. "He thought I was wearing the  make−up so the yokels up here wouldn't
  have a description of me." 
  The girl looked up the mountain. The Roar DeviI's party had drawn  ahead. 
  "We'd better step on it," she said. 
  They "stepped on it," but cautiously, seeking cover, which was not  an easy thing to do. They passed another
  spot where blasting had been  done in search for Dove Zachies's cache. The party ahead filed into a  ravine.
  They managed to distinguish D'Aughtell in the cavalcade. 
  Speaking as if she knew it were a fact but just wanted to repeat it  to convince herself, the girl said, "You left
  Dove Zachies and his men  behind, knowing D'Aughtell would tip his pals off to where they are so  they could
  be carried off. You did that deliberately, so that the Roar  Devil would find Dove Zachies's cache." 
  "That is past history," Doc Savage told her. "You might be a little  more careful. After all, if they discover us
  now, things will be in a  bad jam." 
  She was a little more attentive to caution. They entered a patch of  boulders and scrambled forward hurriedly
  − so hurriedly that they all  but gave themselves away, for the Roar Devil's cavalcade had stopped. 
  "Stay here," Doc told the girl. 
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  She plainly did not like that, but she said, "All right." 
  "And I mean stay here!" he added grimly. "No matter what happens!" 
  "I'll stay," she snapped. "But I can take care of myself, and don't  you − " 
  Doc left her bragging about her own abilities, and went on. There  was the silence of a ghost in his going, and
  instead of shoving up his  head, he used a small periscopic affair of a slender tube and mirrors  to survey the
  terrain ahead. 
  He came to a point where he could hear his quarry talking, but did  not dare show himself enough to take a
  look at them. 
  Dove Zachies was wailing, "Now listen, a long time ago you guys  offered me a deal − " 
  "Where is the cache?" a harsh, singsong voice ripped. 
  That was the Roar Devil's voice. 
  Doc Savage took a chance and lifted his head for a look. He was  unfortunate. The Roar Devil was not in
  sight, but fully twenty others  were, and any instant they might see the bronze man. He lowered his  head and
  contented himself with listening. 
  "Now look," Dove Zachies gulped desperately. "I'll throw in with  you, see? I'll even take a mighty small split.
  You can use my dope −  the stuff in my cache − to whip your organization into shape and start  operations.
  And I'll play along with you, and not − " 
  "All right," said the singing voice, "Show us the cache!" 
  "You'll play ball − " 
  "We will." 
  "Gee, thanks!" gasped Zachies. "Now, look. The cache is right here,  see? You stamp on this cracked piece of
  rock and the whole thing hinges  up − " 
  There was a stamping noise, then a grinding of stone. Several men  swore or muttered. The secret door must
  have opened. 
  "AND to think we dang near blasted this mountain apart huntin' this  spot," a man laughed. 
  Doc Savage chanced another look, but could make out nothing. He  listened. Sounds indicated the men were
  filing down into a subterranean  passage of some description. 
  Doc Savage waited until silence fell. Then he lifted his head. No  one in sight, but he could not see the mouth
  of the cave, if that was  what it was. He crept forward. 
  There was a cleverly constructed trapdoor affair in the stone side  of the ravine, and this was open. Two men,
  holding automatic rifles,  stood on guard outside. They were not doing a very good job of  guarding. Their
  attention was riveted upon what was going on  underground. They were bending forward, listening. 
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  Doc Savage fished out one of the little glass bulbs which he used  so conveniently. He tossed it. Both of the
  men heard the sound it made  behind them − as if a bird's egg had been dropped. They turned. Then  they went
  to sleep and fell over. 
  The bronze man stripped off his shoes and went down the side of the  ravine. He paused a moment at the
  mouth of the cave. It seemed to slope  upward. Voice rumbles came from deep within the cave. 
  It was a nice place for a secret door. No doubt, every rain sent a  flood of water down the ravine, and that
  would wash away many marks  left by users of the place. 
  Doc Savage went in. The floor slanted sharply. Then there were  steps. 
  The first dozen steps were wide, comfortable. The next few were  narrow, as if in the building of the place, the
  excavator had gotten  tired or changed his mind. The alteration in the width of the steps  nearly caused the
  bronze man to make a noise. He went on. 
  There was a room. Flashlights illuminated it. It was arched and  like a vault, entirely of stone. 
  Several men were holding another up on their shoulders. The top man  was Dove Zachies. He was working
  with a hammer and a cold chisel,  cutting into concrete that had been dyed to make it look like the  native rock. 
  "Pretty slick, wasn't it?" he was saying. "Even if you had opened  up this cave with your blasting, I doubt if
  you would have found the  lock boxes with the documents in them." 
  He perspired, and his hammer clanged and rock fragments clattered  down on the heads of those below. 
  "I guess I oughta listened to reason at the first," Zachies said.  "But you see, I been gathering this stuff for
  years. It's cost me no  telling how much money! There is nothing else like it any where. With  this stuff, I can
  do darn near what I want, and make a lot of other  people do it, too. I didn't want to give it up." 
  His cold chisel slipped out of his hand and flew across the room.  Some one found it and brought it back,
  requesting him, profanely to be  careful. 
  DOC SAVAGE shifted position slightly. He was looking for the  mastermind, the person who had been
  designated as the Roar Devil. He  did not see him. 
  Monk, Ham and the other prisoners stood along one wall, each with  handcuffs on his wrists. 
  Dove Zachies beat the cold chisel steadily with the hammer. He  seemed worried, almost terrified, and he
  talked in a wild, hurried  voice. Possibly, it relieved his mind in some manner. 
  "I first got the idea of gettin' this stuff together more'n ten  years ago," he said. "That was when a bird in my
  mob made a death−bed  statement about a judge who had killed a man in a fight and nobody ever  suspected.
  You can bet that judge was very good to me after that." 
  The hammer banged. Concrete bits sprayed out, even to as far as  where Doc Savage crouched, just out side
  the room. 
  "Most of the stuff is genuine evidence on somebody," Dove Zachies  went on. "Some of it has been framed.
  But the victims don't know that." 
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  "Hurry up," some one said. 
  "Getting to it," Zachies chuckled wildly. "Now you take my dope on  the lad who's slated for mayor. He's an
  up−and−coming young politician  and people think he's straight. They think he doesn't show favor to
  anybody. That's true − except for me. That lad will do anything I say,  just about, because in this lock box I'm
  digging out of the ceiling  here, I've got proof that his sister killed a guy. 
  "The killing was a frame−up, but the sister and nobody else knows  that. Take that paper alone. It's worth half
  a million to the right  guy, easy. Sure it is! It's just like having the key to the city. And  there is plenty of more
  like it in this box!" 
  He gave a few more ordinarily lusty blows with the hammer. The cold  chisel made sounds of hitting metal. 
  "We're all gonna go places with this stuff," Dove Zachies said  expansively, to those below him. "The Roar
  Devil has drawn you birds  together in one of the biggest and best mobs ever organized! With this  stuff I've
  got in my tin boxes here, we can take over the whole eastern  part of the United States." 
  He had enlarged the hole above him. He inserted the chisel and  wrenched. A metal box came out. It was a tin
  container of the type  commonly used to hold documents. He passed it down, continued prying,  and five more
  of the metal boxes came out. 
  "I've got the keys," he said. 
  They lowered him. The men crowded in a compact group, except for  those watching the prisoners. Doc
  Savage took a chance and stared into  the room, even shoving his head and shoulders inside. He could not see
  the Roar Devil. The man was hidden by his followers. 
  Sounds indicated the boxes were being opened. Then documents  crackled. There were grunts of satisfaction. 
  "I could peddle this stuff to professional blackmailers for a  million bucks, easy!" Dove Zachies said loudly.
  "It's taken me years  and thousands and thousands of dollars to assemble that stuff." 
  A man said, "Shall we shoot Zachies now?" 
  Zachies must have looked at the Roar Devil's face. 
  "You − you're gonna double−cross me!" he screamed. 
  THERE was a scuffle, short and ferocious. Dove Zachies screamed all  during the struggle, his voice a
  frenzied bleating remindful of a  rabbit caught by dogs. Then they tossed him out with the other  prisoners. He
  could not stand, his legs shook so, and he sagged down on  the floor and began to blubber and sob in horror. 
  Then the singsong voice of the Roar Devil began to speak. 
  "These documents are all that I wanted," he said. "They are, as  Zachies says, invaluable. There is blackmail
  evidence of every kind  here. It is all on wealthy men and men high in public office. With it,  we can get for
  ourselves all kinds of privileges. These papers are the  one link necessary to complete my organization." 
  He apparently riffled through more of the papers. But he was still  behind the jam of men in the room, and
  Doc Savage could not see him. 
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  "Wonderful!" the Roar Devil resumed. "Here is evidence that would  hang several of our best known
  criminals. I have tried to get these men  to join me, and they have refused. They will change their minds,
  now." 
  On the floor, Dove Zachies bubbled, "You can't kill me! You can't!  You told me − " 
  "Shut up!" he was told. 
  "Yes, do be a man," the Roar Devil suggested. "Of course, you  should have known you would not be turned
  free, no more than the  others, those men of Doc Savage's." 
  "Whatcha gonna do with me?" Zachies gasped. 
  "As you know, we brought along some hundreds of pounds of T. N.  T.," Zachies was told. "The plan was to
  set off a blast which would not  only wipe out Doc Savage's aides, but destroy their bodies. That still  seems an
  excellent scheme. We'll let you keep them company, Zachies." 
  At that point, one of the prisoners spoke up. It was the gaunt  geologist, Johnny. 
  "Another explosion of consequence will cause a slippage of the  earth along a subterranean fault line," he said.
  "That big dam above  Powertown will undoubtedly collapse. It is under considerable strain  now, although not
  in immediate danger of giving way. I suggest that you  dispose of us, if you are going to insist on that, in a
  manner which  will not menace other lives." 
  Johnny spoke calmly enough that only one who knew him well could  tell that he was probably scared as he
  had ever been in his not  uneventful, life. 
  "It is probable that Doc Savage will have the police watching the  roads for known criminals," the Roar Devil
  singsonged. "Doc Savage  thinks Mayor Leland Ricketts, who is now dead, was the Roar Devil. He  will
  naturally expect my organization to disband. And he will have the  police watching. But we could easily get
  away in the excitement which  would follow a darn break. You see, we have merely to switch on my
  apparatus which so completely eliminates all sound, and − " 
  There was a loud clatter and a stifled cry down the passage behind  Doc Savage. The Roar Devil had not been
  speaking loudly. This new noise  was as disturbing as the explosion of dynamite. 
  Chapter XX. HELL IN A ROCK BOX
  A MAN pitched into the passage from the room. It happened with  shocking abruptness. The fellow had not
  been with the others, but had  stood just inside, and Doc Savage, thanks to the tableau in the center  of the
  stone chamber, had been unaware of the man's presence. 
  The man slammed headlong into Doc Savage.Doc struck him. The fellow  was driven backward. But he was a
  big man and strong, and he had gotten  a grip on the bronze man's coat. He kept the grip. 
  The coat came apart in the middle of the back and was torn  completely off the bronze giant, except for the
  sleeves. The man who  had been struck carried it with him as he tumbled away. 
  Losing the coat was little short of a disaster. In the pockets  reposed the anaesthetic bombs with which the
  bronze man had been  intending to overcome those in the stone room. He lunged for the coat. 
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  The man with the coat apparently realized he had a prize. He was  still on his feet. He ran with the coat. 
  Men charged for Doc. A gun blasted. Its report all but split  eardrums. Doc was weaving and the slug missed
  him. 
  Monk howled. Renny roared. Both pitched into the fight, although  their wrists were handcuffed. Ham and
  Johnny also mixed in the fight.  They were joined by Dove Zachies and his captured crew, fighting for  their
  lives. 
  The next instant, the stone cell was a bawling, screaming bedlam.  Forty men fought in a space hardly more
  than that many feet in each  direction. 
  Guns banged. Lead made ugly sounds in flesh. Powder fumes smarted  throats. 
  The singsong voice of the Roar Devil lashed out. 
  "The T. N. T.!" he shrilled. "No shooting. A bullet might hit it!" 
  Every one heard him. It was a thought that chilled spines.  Somewhere in the room, the boxes of explosive had
  been stacked. Not  another shot was fired. And men began to be very careful that they did  not hit anything but
  other men when they swung blows. 
  It dawned on Monk that there was going to be no more gunplay. 
  "Wheel" he squawled. "For years, I've looked for a fight like  this!" 
  Doc Savage found a round, hard skull. He slipped his hands down to  the back of the neck. An instant before
  he tightened his fingers, the  victim emitted a howl and Doc knew it was D'Aughtell. 
  Doc did something to the back of D'Aughtell's neck − something it  would have taken one skilled in
  chiropractic and surgery to explain,  something that induced a nerve paralysis that rendered most of the  man's
  body temporarily useless. The bronze man had practiced that for  years. He could do it with a squeeze and a
  twist, and get results that  smacked of the touch of a genius. 
  Three men tried for the door in a fighting wedge. They did not make  it. One was driven aside, so that he
  bumped his senses out against the  wall. One was knocked out neatly and simply. The other ran the other  way,
  after having his right arm nearly jerked from its socket. 
  Monk was still yelling, a great, joyful senseless bawling. He  always did that when he fought. He went
  completely haywire − and had  the time of his life. 
  Only a sporadic rumble came from Renny. But the awful impact of his  great fists was a sound that could be
  picked out above all the rest.  Johnny managed to fight in comparative dignity. 
  "I'll be superamalgamated!" he said once, when something untoward  happened to him. 
  Over on the other side of the room, Ham swore a few educated  vituperatives and wished mildly that he had
  his sword cane. 
  Doc Savage, sidling along the wall, fell over something. The  something squealed. It was the pig, Habeas
  Corpus, in a gunny sack.  Some one had brought him along. 
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  Doc untied the sack and shook Habeas out to add to the general  uproar. 
  THE fray, to the death though it was, had its comical aspects. Monk  started it off. He hit Renny by mistake,
  and was knocked down for his  pains. After that, Monk grabbed a figure in the intense darkness,  asked, "Who
  is it?" and reacted according to the answer he got. 
  Occasionally, flashlights came on. But they always went out  quickly, because the light was certain to draw a
  rush of enemies. 
  The Roar Devil was first to lose his nerve. 
  "Get out!" he shrilled. "Let them follow you outside where we can  use our guns!" 
  Doc Savage made straight for the sound of the voice. He spread his  arms wide, and he made no noise at all.
  Sure enough, he encountered his  quarry. He took a terrific blow in the midriff, a blow that was like  the sound
  of a hard−swung ax against wood. 
  Doc chopped with a fist. The blow landed but glancingly, only  driving the other back. The Roar Devil was
  moaning. He had hurt his  fist, broken bones in it, with that first blow. 
  Doc hit him again, very hard, just as the man fired a gun. The  fellow's fear of personal injury had overcome
  his fear of hitting the  T. N. T. The slug started the bronze man's shoulder smarting, and he  hit again with his
  fist. That one landed squarely. 
  The next instant, a slack body was in his arms. The Roar Devil had  been knocked back against the stone side
  of the chamber and had  bounced, senseless. Doc held him long enough to be sure that he still  breathed. Then
  he let the fellow down on the floor. 
  Men were escaping through the passage. They were not having an easy  time of it, but they were getting away,
  one at a time, and as they  escaped, the uproar became proportionately less. 
  Finally, only two men were fighting. They battled viciously, and in  silence. Then one of them landed a
  particularly hard blow. 
  "Ouch!" roared Monk. 
  "You ugly ape!" gritted the second combatant. 
  "Ham!" Monk squawled. "Was that you I've been fightin' the last  five minutes?" 
  Ham said something blistering. "Why'd you stop yelling, you  accident of nature? How was I to know that it
  was you?" 
  "I got hoarse," Monk snarled. "Why didn't you say something? Say, I  gotta notion to paste you!" 
  Doc Savage found a flashlight and thumbed it on. He roved the beam.  His four aides were on their feet. So
  was Dove Zachies and three of his  gang. 
  Monk ceased glaring at Ham, looked about on the floor, found a  submachine gun which some one had
  dropped, and managed to pick it up  with his manacled hands. He maneuvered it into a position where he
  could fire it, and started for the door. 
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  "Wait!" Doc said sharply. 
  "I'm goin' out," Monk growled. '"Them guys ain't gonna get away!" 
  "They'll be watching the entrance," Doc told him. "They'll shoot  you down as you go out." 
  Monk stopped. "Yeah, they might, at that." 
  A sharp, ugly roar of shots came to their ears. The firing was  outside, a machine gun. 
  "One of them limbering up his gun," Renny boomed uneasily. "Say,  we're in a jam! We can't go near that
  entrance. They'll hear us and  turn loose. There ain't no shelter in that passage." 
  "And no doubt they will hold us in here until they can get  explosives," Ham said ominously. "A grenade or
  two tossed inside will  just about finish us." 
  Doc Savage found two more flashlights. He held them all together,  so that they made a bright bundle of light,
  and began going over the  subterranean room. He found the boxes of T. N. T., miraculously  undisturbed in the
  fighting, but passed it up for a pair of large  cases, fitted with carrying straps, which stood near by. He bent
  over  these. 
  Monk ambled over. "What's that? You think it'll help us?" 
  "It should," Doc told him. 
  "What is it?" 
  "An apparatus for producing sonic waves of a somewhat peculiar  nature on an ultra−short wave length," Doc
  told him. 
  Monk knew something of the science of sound. He looked interested,  said, "Yeah?" 
  Doc Savage had gotten the cases over. They seemed to hook together  with a flexible conductor. There was a
  lid on each box. He removed them  and began pouring light over the intricate mechanism within. 
  "Not as complicated as might be expected," he said. "This one, of  course, only works over a short distance.
  They must have another, a  larger one, which they used when setting off the blasts." 
  "Yeah, I heard 'em say they did have," Monk replied. "How does that  trap work?" 
  "Ultra−short sound waves can do queer things," Doc said. "For  instance, did you ever see certain insects
  exposed to sonic vibrations  set up by the contraction and expansion of a quartz crystal as a high  frequency
  alternating current is passed through it?" 
  "Long Tom monkeys with that stuff," Monk said. "I think he told me  one time that it would kill the bugs,
  sometimes." 
  "Exactly," Doc said, working over the mechanism. "Ultra−short sonic  waves result in rather unusual
  phenomena. Scientists, as a matter of  fact, do not know all that is to be known about them, by a good deal." 
  "Which adds up to what in this case?" Monk persisted. 
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  The machine gun stuttered again outside. They did not, however,  hear any bullets enter the passage. 
  "This device," Doc indicated the boxes, "makes sonic waves on some  infinitely short wave length. Those
  waves seem to have the quite  peculiar property of − 
  "Stopping all sound!" Monk finished. 
  "No," Doc told him, "that is hardly possible. The sonic waves  simply paralyze the drum of the human ear
  until it is not susceptible  to sound. The sonic waves, the air vibration, does something to the ear  mechanism
  that renders it incapable of registering sound." 
  Monk grunted explosively. 
  "Is that the secret of the periods of absolute silence?" he  demanded. 
  "It is." 
  Doc Savage worked over the apparatus. He had put the connections  together in the most obvious places. Now
  he began turning switches. The  results were deafening. 
  The cavern was filled with a tremendous, ear−splitting roar. The  sound seemed everywhere; it made their
  heads ache with its power. It  was a sound such as nothing conceivable might make. 
  Doc turned the switches off. The roar died. 
  "That explains something which was puzzling me," he said. "That  roaring noise!" 
  "What makes it?" Monk demanded. 
  "This apparatus, when it is not adjusted properly," Doc told him. 
  RENNY boomed, "So that mystery is cleared up! Boy, I heard that  roar a time or two, and it sure had me
  buffaloed!" 
  Doc Savage scrutinized the instrument closely, obviously trying to  fathom its secrets. 
  "It requires very close adjustment," he decided aloud. "A thing of  this kind naturally would. It is amazingly
  complicated." 
  He continued his tinkering. 
  Monk pointed at the apparatus. "What are you going to do, if you  can make it work?" 
  "Turn it on," Doc said. "It will be of some help in getting close  to the mouth of that passage. They cannot
  hear us coming. We may be  able to pick some of them off, then rush them." 
  So unexpectedly that it surprised them all vastly, a feminine voice  sounded. 
  "Say," demanded Retta Kenn from outside, "isn't anybody left alive  in there?" 
  Doc Savage deserted the silence−making machine and ran through the  passage. 
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  Retta Kenn was in the bright sunlight outside. She held a  submachine gun, with which she menaced a cluster
  of cowed Roar Devil  gunmen. 
  "I made them line up as they came out," she said happily. "I got  this gun from one of the guards you
  overcame outside the cave mouth." 
  DOC SAVAGE stared at her. He did not say anything. He looked as if  he would have liked to say something. 
  "I'm good," Retta Kenn said. "You'll have to admit it." 
  Her face was a wreck. Most of the skin was gone from her nose and  the end of her chin. Her face was also
  dirty. 
  "I told you not to follow me," Doc said. 
  "It's a good thing I did." She waved at her prisoners. "These would  have gotten away." 
  "You followed me," Doc told her. "You fell down those steps inside,  and touched off the excitement before I
  was ready for it. Otherwise, I  could have gotten them all with that anaesthetic gas, and there would  not have
  been any danger to anybody." 
  She grinned at him impishly. "You know everything, don't you?" 
  Doc Savage said nothing. He began searching the prisoners and  disarming such of them as had weapons. On
  one, he found the keys to the  handcuffs which secured his men, and he turned them loose. They  transferred
  the handcuffs to the more belligerent of their prisoners. 
  Monk blew on his wrists vigorously when the handcuffs were off.  During the fight, the bracelets had scraped
  most of the skin and some  of the flesh from his hairy wrist. 
  He glowered at the captives, and said, "I gotta notion to go right  down the line and knock 'em all stiff!" 
  The prisoners squirmed. They apparently thought he meant it. 
  "I know what I'll do," Monk decided. "I'll get that Roar Devil and  tie him up. We don't want him to get
  away." 
  He stalked into the cave with a flashlight. 
  Retta Kenn looked at Doc Savage. "Have you got enough evidence on  these men to get them what they
  deserve in a court of law? They all  should be hung." 
  "They will never see a court of law," Doc Savage said. 
  "What do you mean?" she demanded. 
  Doc Savage did not give her the satisfaction of knowing that all of  the prisoners would be consigned to the
  "crime college" which he  maintained farther upstate. 
  The girl did not need to know about the "college." Few individuals  outside Doc Savage and his group of five
  men did know of the existence  of the place. 
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  Monk came out of the cave, triumphantly dragging a limp figure. 
  "Here he is!" he grinned, and tossed the Roar Devil on the ground. 
  Retta Kenn stared at the unconscious Roar Devil. 
  "Why," she gasped, "it's my boss, V. Venable Mear!" 
  DOC SAVAGE went back into the cave, partially to make sure none of  the unconscious men there came to
  their senses and tried to make a  break, and partially to get away from Retta Kenn. 
  She was a very capable young woman. She had as much nerve as any  member of the feminine sex he had
  ever encountered. Sometimes he  believed she had too much nerve. At times she was braver than any one  with
  good sense should be. 
  And she irritated him. 
  None of the fight victims seemed about to awaken, so Doc Savage  devoted attention to the sonic transmitter
  which had caused so much  mystery. 
  It was an interesting device, something well ahead of current  scientific discoveries. He resolved to take it to
  his skyscraper  laboratory and ascertain fully the principles upon which it had worked.  D'Aughtell, no doubt,
  had invented it, and D'Aughtell, with the proper  persuasion, would tell all about it. 
  The apparatus should prove an interesting study. And it, or some  adaptation of it, might prove useful in the
  future. Doc would work hard  at it. 
  He was mistaken. He would work hard, but not at this. For there was  another mystery that would occupy his
  attention. A mystery deeper than  this, carrying with it peril and death in fantastic forms; a mystery  chronicled
  in the history of the ancient Vikings, but written there in  such a manner that, down through the ages, no man
  had dreamed its  amazing significance. Unknown through history, because men had  forgotten the meaning of
  one word, Qui. 
  The Quest of Qui was to take Doc Savage into the bleak fastnesses  of Labrador, and to an island which held a
  thing so fantastic that the  world could not comprehend. Qui was there, and the horror of Qui, the  mystery of
  Qui, was to afford the bronze man and his aides adventure  more perilous, danger more hideous, than they had
  ever before  encountered. 
  But Doc Savage, blissfully unaware of what was to come, left the  sonic apparatus after a while and went out
  into the sunlight. 
  Monk had Retta Kenn to one side. He had apparently been telling her  things about Doc. 
  "He's quite a guy," she said. "He'd make a swell husband for a gal  who likes excitement." 
  "Doc's not interested in women," Monk said. "But how about me for a  husband?" 
  "Heaven forbid!" the girl said fervently. 
  THE END 
   THE ROAR DEVIL
  Chapter XX. HELL IN A ROCK BOX
  102
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Vault2.0.-.Fiction-and-audiobooks/Books/R/Robeson, Kenneth/028 The Roar Devil.pdf