Since Reservoir Hill didn"t answer, Doc said, "He is."
Monk opened and shut his mouth, apparently could think of nothing else to do, and sat down muttering.
"Well, I hope to go on a diet of crude oil, which I"m beginnin" to hate somethin" huge!"
Men came in the door and pointed rifles at Doc Savage.
"Come out!" they ordered. "We"re gonna give you some attention!"
They only wanted to search him. They did it, stripping him to the skin, and all of the time keeping him covered with guns.
They put his pocketed vest on the rickety table which stood to one side of the room. There was a telegraph key and a sounder on this table, but they did not look as if they had been used in a long time. Through the huge windows, long unwashed, Doc Savage got a look at the surrounding country. It was not what he expected.
THERE were giant oil storage tanks all around the place.
A tank farm, as these collections of storage tanks were called in oilfield parlance! Almost half a hundred of the huge tanks must surround this building, each encircled by a small dike to catch the oil should the tank spring a leak.
The tanks did not look large at this distance, but Doc knew they were fifty-five-thousand-barrel giants, that being the usual storage tank size in this area. Too, there were tiny streaks of leakage on the tanks and other indications which pointed to most of them being full of crude oil.
The tank farm seemed to be situated in a valley, with rolling hills on either side, hills of some height.
As for the building in which Doc was being held, that was a pumping station, or had been, for it was apparently not used now. The building was a substantial one of brick and concrete.
Doc eyed the telegraph instruments, once used by a gauging operator in reporting to his oil dispatcher in the head office. Too bad they were not connected, as it was plain to see they were not.
The men stood about Doc"s unusual vest for a time, curiously examining the unusual gadgets therein. They turned tiny phials of chemicals in their hands, examined gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s holding other chemicals, and peered at intricate, compact devices.
"We"re gonna monkey around until we get h.e.l.l blowed outta us!" a man muttered. "We better let this stuff alone!"
They slammed Doc back into the room which had no window and a stout door. The other prisoners eyed the bronze man anxiously.
"They did nothing but search me," Doc explained.
"I can"t understand their holding off on us!" Monk grunted.
"They won"t hold off on us for long!" grunted old Reservoir Hill.
Doc eyed him. "Mind telling us how you got involved in this, Tant, or Hill, or whatever your name is?"
RESERVOIR HILL shoved out his jaw fiercely, and became Outlaw Tant, Oklahoma Badman, as far as appearances went."This mastermind who"s holding us prisoner-"
"Know who he is?" Doc interposed.
"No! Do you?"
Doc ignored the query and said, "Go on with your story!"
"All right," Hill growled with Tant fierceness. "This hombre got in touch with me, see? He wanted me to pitch in and help him with my mob. He explained that he had discovered these infernal red monsters coming outt"a the ground through an oil well, and had learned how to control "em. He was gonna-well, you know what he was gonna do. He was starting in the Indian Dome Field. And that was the catch!"
"Your oil property was in the Indian Dome Field," Doc said. "That was the reason. The first victim was to be the Sands-Carlaw-Hill lease?"
"Listen, I got more property than my share of that lease in the Indian Dome Field! I own a dozen leases under different names! I"ll have you know I"m a millionaire, I am! And n.o.body concerned suspected me of being Tant!"
"So you refused to take part in this other man"s plot, because your own holdings were to be the first one"s stolen?"
"That"s the idea. Anyhow, I ain"t a guy who likes to take orders from n.o.body. This other mug was pushing in on my territory, I figured. That kinda helped me decide to tie into "im."
"Which was your mistake," some one said, dryly.
The door opened again, and the men with rifles came in. They came over and prodded Doc Savage.
"You better say good-by this time," one of the riflemen growled, "because you ain"t comin" back!"
Chapter XX. THE BLAZE OF GLORY.
MONK and Ham got up from the floor, where they had been sitting, and the bronze man"s other aids grew tense. They were fully intent on starting to fight, despite the muzzles of guns menacing them.
"No!" Doc said sharply.
"Listen, Doc!" Monk growled. "You"ve been searched! I"ve seen you do some impossible things, but you won"t make it this time! These cookies are tough, and they"re gonna finish you off!"
"Keep your heads!" Doc said, again sharply.
Then he added five words in a tongue which himself and his five aids used when they did not want to be understood by listeners. It was Mayan, an ancient language, lost to the so-called civilized world.
"And be ready to help," Doc said in Mayan.
Monk and the others were good actors. They showed no sign that the words meant anything favorable.
Instead, they looked more worried than before, if possible, and clenched their fists and surged forward threateningly.
"Keep back!" Doc yelled at them, keeping up the deception.
Doc Savage was now hauled out of the room, the door of which was then slammed.
In the big room into which the bronze man was dragged, a number of heavily armed men stood about. They all stared at the bronze giant with great interest, and since he was weaponless and they had firearms, and also since they outnumbered him a score or more to one, they were not afraid.On the table, far to one side, lay the stuff, which had been taken from Doc. They took pains that he did not walk near it as they marched him across the chamber and to a door which probably led to what had originally been a small storeroom. Several men sneered. One or two laughed jeeringly.
Doc Savage stopped. The men leading him tried to yank him on, but suddenly found themselves almost helpless. The bronze man did not attempt to escape; he merely turned slowly. It was strange, the effect this had. Every man in the room became silent.
Doc allowed them about ten seconds-long enough for the silence to have its effect, but not long enough for it to wear off.
"You men," Doc Savage said, "are doomed!"
His flexible voice had become deep-timbered and sonorous, and in it was a quality of sepulchral unreality. It was as if a ghostly apparition had spoken.
"Before many minutes pa.s.s, you will feel the first clutches of death!" Doc said, solemnly.
After that, he began to make his weird, trilling noise. He could, if he desired, make this consciously, although on ordinary occasions the sound came without thought. Indeed, it was sometimes a cause of embarra.s.sment.
The trilling sound mounted and mounted, and from its usual resemblance to a wayward breeze trickling through the naked boughs of some thick forest, arose and arose until it became a banshee, hungry sound.
And throughout, it held its ventriloquial quality, so that none in the room could tell for certain from whence it came.
A man broke under the strain and bawled, "Get "im outta here!"
They hauled Doc into an adjacent room.
PRINc.i.p.aL item of equipment in this room was a wooden trough, which seemed to be lined with lead. It was not more than a foot deep, about two and a half wide, and seven long.
The trough was standing about half full of a vile-looking liquid, which gave off fumes that almost instantly started the eyes watering.
Several men still grasped Doc Savage. The bronze man ignored them and looked around.
Over in one corner lay several strange-looking objects.
Soft, porous slabs of sponge rubber! Stout little balloons of rubber filled with some liquid, probably water.
Sheets of crepe rubber. To some of these sheets were attached slender lengths of bamboo; to all of them were attached strings.
Red, every one of the things! The hideous salmon tint of the "monsters" from the depths of the earth!
The man with the black gloves came in, saw Doc Savage looking at the array of rubber stuff, and chuckled.
"You"ve probably guessed it by now," he said. "Them rubber things is what we"ve been using to make people think they saw monsters!"
Doc Savage said nothing.
"There ain"t no earth devils!" the man rapped, sharply. "You savvy that? There ain"t any! We had that wildcat well on the Sands-Carlaw-Hill lease fixed with the pipe tapped underground, so we could pull some of the rubber paraphernalia in and out. We even poured acid inside the casing so the pipe would be eaten away and people would think the monsters could even digest steel."
Doc held his silence.The black-gloved man laughed harshly.
"We even had some stuff fixed up out of the acids and stuff that make up digestive juices!" he barked. "We smeared that along the ground to leave a trail to make "em think the monsters were crawling around!"
Doc was looking, now, at the trough full of fluid.
"Trough full of acid," said the man. "It don"t take long to destroy a body or partially destroy it! That"s the monster"s digester!"
He lifted a gun and stepped forward.
"Does your chief know you are doing this?" Doc asked, sharply.
"Sure, and why not? He"s outside, hanging around where he won"t be seen, until you and your men and Tant are out of the way. Why?"
"Curiosity," Doc said.
"Yeah? Well, forget him. We"re gonna knock you senseless and put you in the trough. When all of you is eaten up by the acid but your head, we"re gonna take that in and show it to the girl and some of the others, who we"re gonna turn loose. But not to any of your men, see!"
He lifted his gun.
DOC SAVAGE said, sharply. "Just a moment! Suppose you go into the other room and see how your friends are getting along?"
The black-gloved man scowled at Doc, hesitated, then snarled, "If this is a trick, it"ll be too bad!" and went out.
He was back almost instantly.
"What"d you do to them?" he shrieked. "Come on! You gotta stop what"s happening to "em!"
Doc was seized and hauled back into the large room.
The men there looked as if something horrible was happening to them. Their flesh seemed to be turning a hideous purple in color, and bulging up in blisters. They pawed at themselves, muttered, occasionally groaned.
One looked at Doc Savage and yelled, "It"s that bronze guy! He said-"
"Shut up!" gritted the man with the black gloves.
The man with the black gloves seemed to be having troubles of his own. He scratched himself, pinched up folds of his skin and looked at it. The better to do this, he removed his black gloves.
The reason for his wearing the gloves was instantly apparent. His hands had been scarred terribly by some accident in the past. They could be recognized instantly.
"Do something about this!" he roared at Doc.
The bronze man, showing no sign that he considered the request strange, considering that they had been on the point of killing him, said, "Monk can help you. This stuff is merely burns caused by an acid which was in my carry-all vest. The acid must have been spilled. It is really a gas with some of the burning properties of mustard gas."
Doc did not add another fact which would have astounded the man with the scarred hands-that the acid had been in tiny gla.s.s containers which could be broken by certain frequencies of sound waves.The gla.s.s containers had a certain vibrating point; and a sound of that frequency would start them vibrating in sympathy, with the result that they shattered themselves when a certain strength of sympathetic vibration was reached.
It was the same method by which the famous singer, Caruso, was able to break wine gla.s.ses, except that in this case it had been Doc"s trilling sound, lifted to great volume, which had done the job.
"Monk can fix an antidote!" Doc yelled. Then, as if he were angry, and expressing his rage in the imprecations of a foreign tongue, he said loudly in Mayan, "Monk, the rest of you, be ready to make a break for it when they unlock the door!"
Doc"s aids heard, and acted on the suggestion, it seemed, for the next instant the pump station became filled with shouting and yelling and uproar.
THE sudden burst of fighting distracted the men in the big room. Doc, lunging sidewise, smashed a fist at the man who wore black gloves to hide his scarred hands. The fellow dropped.