"Suspects that Tant is not behind this thing at all? Naw, he ain"t got an inkling of it!"
"Has he any idea of what we"re after, and why we"re trying to lay the blame onto Tant?"
"I dunno. I don"t think so."
Had bony Johnny, the accomplished actor, heard this, he would have bowed his head in shame and decided to give up the pursuit of excitement and go back to teaching the youth of the United States that a pyrite is a native compound rock containing metals, and not a fellow with a cutla.s.s in his teeth.
Johnny thought he was in the company of a Tant outlaw. But it seemed the badman in question was a member of another mob, which was engaged in pointing suspicion at Tant.
The leader of this mysterious other band was asking, "Does Doc Savage know what the red monsters are?"
"I tell you, I don"t know what he knows, chief," the man called Cackle replied. "All I know is that I got suspicious of this guy Snook, thought at first he was a Tant man, then got the suspicion he might be a Doc Savage man."
The other voice said, after a pause, "I think we can make use of this. We"ll trick this Savage aid into trapping his boss."A long stream of command followed.
CACKLE returned to Johnny via the front door of the restaurant. He was carrying a newspaper.
"Went out to got a paper," he said. "Waited a few minutes, so as to grab the latest edition."
Johnny glanced at the paper.
FILLING STATION MAN SHOT.
FOUND IN CAR NEAR ROCK SLIDE.
Police Still Investigating Mystery Rock Blown On Road That was all the police had given the newspaper reporters so far.
They went out and got in the car. Cackle pulled out a map, not a road map, but one of the type used by oil men, an accurately surveyed map from which the most exact positions can be secured.
Cackle pointed.
"There," he said, "Is where the boss, Tant, is right now."
They drove out of town, east, then north, then east again, and pa.s.sed the airport. Beyond, Cackle drove into a filling station, saying, "Gotta get her filled up."
While the gasoline was being pumped in, and oil and tires checked, Cackle roamed into a near-by orchard and began to finger over worm-eaten fruit in search of an apple that looked worth consuming, Johnny took the bait. He slid out of the car, scuttled into the filling station and telephoned Doc Savage.
He gave Doc the exact location pointed out by Cackle as the whereabouts of Outlaw Tant.
"Be there shortly," Doc Savage said.
Johnny was sitting innocently in the car when Cackle returned. They drove on, and covered about two miles when Cackle pointed abruptly and said, "There"s one of our hang-outs, too."
There was nothing. It was a gag, an old one, but the old ones are sometimes best. Johnny looked, and never knew about the blackjack which Cackle swung, until he figured it out hours later, after he regained consciousness.
Cackle looked at the senseless figure of the gaunt geologist and archaeologist. Then Cackle pocketed his blackjack.
"The great Doc Savage"s aids!" he sniffed. "Just so much gravy! That"s what!"
He tied Johnny, gagged him, then drove on. He began laughing to himself.
"The chief is sure slick!" he chuckled. "n.o.body even knows what we"re doing until it"s almost done, and then this Tant gent gets the blame!"
Chapter XIV. MASTERMIND.
DOC SAVAGE evidenced no unusual haste after he received Johnny"s call-the call which Johnny had been unknowingly tricked into making, and which was to lead Doc Savage into a trap.The bronze man had been telephoning oil field lease brokers, the gentlemen known locally as "lease robbers," and possibly misnamed, because there were those among them as honest and upright as any businessman.
"Are there any leases being sold in the Indian Dome Field to-day?" Doc asked.
"You mean the field where them d.a.m.n man-eating things escaped through a casing?" the broker asked.
"That is the field," Doc admitted.
"There"s been some more attacks by the man-eating devils up there," said the broker. "Drilling crews, pumpers, and even operators are beginning to get scared of the place. Almost everybody will clear out if there"s many more attacks. That"ll cause a lot of leases to be offered for sale, because n.o.body wants a field where no telling what time something out of the ground"ll eat you."
"Any leases sold in the Indian Dome Field to-day?" Doc repeated.
"Yeah. One. No, wait a minute! Two! One early, and one just a minute ago. They sold very cheap, because the men who owned them got scared. One had a brother killed by the red, jellylike devils last night. You know, that drilling crew that was about half eaten up by the monsters in the Indian Dome Field last night. That lease was one that was sold, on account of the brother didn"t want anything more to do with it. He got the big jitters and the w.i.l.l.i.e.s and-"
"Who bought it?" Doc asked, sharply.
The lease broker evidently looked the name up.
"The Best Bet Oil Corporation," he said.
"Who owns it?"
"n.o.body seems to know. Now if you want to get some leases cheap-"
Doc Savage seemed to consider for a moment "Listen," he said, "this is Clark Savage, Jr."
"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" the broker asked.
"Doc Savage."
The broker must have choked slightly. "That"s different!"
Doc said, "I am making a standing offer for any lease in the Indian Dome Field. I will pay one thousand dollars more than any other offer made for any lease. Understand, I make no offer for any lease myself. But when an offer is made, I will go it one thousand dollars better. See that the word gets around, will you?"
"Will I!" exploded the broker. "Say, I"ll cut my commission to five per cent! But what"s the idea? You going into oil production in the mid-West in a big way?"
Doc Savage said, "I am trying to prevent one of the most gigantic extortion schemes and steals ever attempted to be perpetrated upon the oil industry. It is just starting now. If it can be nipped in the bud, now is the time to do it"
"Good night!" yelled the broker. "Give me more details-"
Doc Savage hung up on him, then called New York City by long-distance telephone, to arrange for financing his purchase of oil leases, if any.
Then he rented an automobile and drove east, then north, heading for the spot which Johnny had been tricked into describing to him as the hide-out of Tomahawk Tant.
THE region of Oklahoma popularly designated as the Osage is that section of the State, north and central, which takes in the original Osage Indian reservation and some adjacent territory. The Osage is nothing to look at. To the eye, it is just red oak brush and hills that are not very impressive.
But it is also one of the most noted hang-outs in the United States for outlaws. The fact that the era of the automobile, airplane and radio had arrived had made little change. For an automobile is of no use without roads, a plane of no use where there is no place to land, and a radio, of course, cannot catch a two-gun badman.
Doc Savage ran his rented car into a red oak thicket about a mile off the paving, on the side road he was to follow. He continued afoot. Not on the road, either. He kept well clear of the rutted thoroughfare, and as he ran, his stride was as springy, his breathing as easy, as ever, although he had already run many miles that day.
From his manner it was plain that he was looking for an ambush along the road.
A herd of cattle galloped over a hill ahead. That warned Doc. He could tell by the way the cattle gathered, that they had been scared by something, and the fact that they did not go back curiously indicated they had been scared by men.
They had been. The men lay behind a small bush, and they had mounted a big army-style machine gun to cover the road.
Johnny, still bound and gagged, lay a short distance behind them, and they-there were six men-were holding a conference. Doc, who was a skilled lip reader, trained his compact, powerful telescope upon the group. They were squabbling over what to do with Johnny.
"He"ll kick up a fuss and warn Doc Savage when he comes down this road!" a man was declaring, "I say put some lead in him where it"ll keep him quiet."
"Don"t be silly!" growled the chicken-faced Cackle.
"We ain"t sure this mug called Doc Savage and told him the hide-out was out this way. If he didn"t, we gotta make him do it. How"ll he do it if he"s dead?"
That seemed to be a hard question to answer. They argued about it, and in the meantime, Doc Savage drew closer.
Six of them! His hands were empty as he crouched in the bottom of a gully, twenty feet behind them. He set his throat muscles in a peculiar fashion, and his lips became positioned. A ventriloquist would have known what was going to happen.
"Hands up!" yelled a voice from the road. "You men are covered!"
It was doubtful if a single one of the men suspected that the voice was not coming from the road. As ventriloquism, it was very good, and it should have been, considering the hundreds of hours which the bronze man had practiced under some of the most skilled of living ventriloquists.
They knew something was wrong when Doc hit them.
DOC SAVAGE"S father, in training him from childhood for his unique career, had taken into account the fact that he would many times have to fight empty-handed against odds. For years, even as a small child, he had been put through a daily rough-and-tumble brawl with larger opponents, several of them, with the penalty for inefficiency a severe lacing.
The men Doc had been pitted against in these practice bouts had been paid a bonus for any blows they could land. Naturally, they had waded in.The result of the training was now evident, as Doc whipped to the attack. The first two were easy. They weren"t expecting anything. Two fist blows disposed of them.
Doc reached for another one. He ducked, got clear. Not so good. The man at the machine gun was trying to swivel its muzzle around. Doc jumped, tripped him.
In an instant, the bronze giant and the four men were a tangled, boiling ma.s.s of arms and legs, out of which came such words as "Hep!" "Now!" "No, h.e.l.l!" and "Get "im!" This was followed with some cusswords, indicating what the four of them thought of the big one they were fighting.
Johnny was acting. He flailed into the melee. Bound and gagged, he could not do much, except trip combatants. He did that. A man got out a gun. Johnny kicked with both bound feet. The gun sailed away.
Doc was fighting three now. One had had his stomach stepped on. Then it was two. The remaining pair were easy, compared to what the first of the fight had been. Johnny, meanwhile, had banged the other man senseless against a rock.
Doc Savage went around and whacked each of the six men on the jaw to make sure he would remain unconscious for some time.
Johnny, when he was ungagged and untied, gulped, "I"ll be superamalgamated. Is my physiognomy rubescent! In other words, is my face red!"
"They would have killed you eventually," Doc told him dryly.
"Which is no doubt what I deserved for letting myself get taken by a trick as simple as they used!" Johnny groaned. "Doc, they kidded me along! I"ll never live this down!"
The bronze man asked, "Have they really a headquarters up here?"
Johnny shook his head. "That was all a trick to kid me, and to trap you. The only headquarters, and it"s not their main one, that I heard about, is that Fujiyama Roadhouse, near Tulsa."
"We"ll try that," Doc said.
"They named the place after the j.a.panese volcano," Johnny said. "It sure lives up to its name!"
Doc Savage now went to the prisoners and administered to each a drug mixture which would extend their unconsciousness indefinitely-until they were given an antidote chemical to awaken them.
"Don"t you want to question them?" Johnny demanded, forgetting his big words in his surprise.
"No," Doc said. "We"ll start them East immediately."
Johnny swallowed several times. A tremendous truth had hit him.
Doc Savage already knew all he needed to know about the mystery of the weird monsters from the depths of the earth!
THE six men had had a car concealed near by. Doc and Johnny used it to carry the six men to a Tulsa hospital, where they were placed in a ward to be left alone. Then Doc sent a telegram to an address in New York.
The telegram merely stated that half a dozen patients were in the hospital for treatment, but it would have strange results. Shortly, a solemn-faced man would be flying to take the six East by air.
In New York they would drop from sight, eventually to wind up in a fantastic place, the unique "criminal-curing college" which Doc Savage maintained in up-State New York. This amazing inst.i.tution, its existence entirely unknown to the outside world, was operated by surgeons and psychologists whom Doc had trained.A criminal, on entering, first had his brain operated upon, so that his past memory was completely wiped out, after which he underwent a course of training calculated to instill in him the ideals of an upright citizen; but perhaps more important, he was taught how to make a good living, so that there would be no pressing temptation later.
No criminal who had ever graduated from this "college" had ever returned to crime.
The Fujiyama Roadhouse was impressive by night, with a lot of neon lights around it. The front was fixed up with neon light tubes to represent a volcano, and every few minutes the volcano erupted.
There were Negroes in white coats to open the doors of cars and hold their hands out for tips. Gambling was wide open in the place, and the dance floor was popular with a certain cla.s.s.
DOC SAVAGE and Johnny looked the scene over from a brush clump, a hundred yards distant.
"If this was a roadhouse in the East, we could walk right in and n.o.body would have nerve enough to start anything," Johnny said. "But some of these Oklahoma lads don"t know when to behave!"
Johnny habitually used small words when in the company of Doc Savage. Probably that, more than anything, indicated the gaunt archaeologist and geologist"s admiration for the bronze giant.