"Anything to report on my call to Antof.a.gasta, Chile?" he questioned.
"Nothing yet, Mr. Savage," was the reply.
Monk and Long Tom scurried about, finishing their packing.
"We just about got it all ready to go, Doc," Monk reported.
The phone rang once more. This time it was a man who said in an expressionless voice: "This is to advise you that the ambulances have picked up their load."
"Very well," Doc told him. "Follow the usual procedure."
Monk, overhearing this, grinned widely. He knew what it meant. The gang who had been in the touring car were en route to Doc"s criminal-curing inst.i.tution up-state.
Doc now began to show some impatience. He again got in touch with the long-distance operator.
"We are very sorry, Mr. Savage," the telephone employee reported after a time. "We are unable to locate Dido Galligan in Antof.a.gasta, Chile. He seems to have left town by airplane, our office there advises."
"Thank you," Doc said, and hung up.
Monk made a hand-flippering gesture of a bird flying away. "There went our chances of learning what Dido Galligan started to tell you about John Acre when the phone wires were cut."
Doc nodded. He began gathering equipment.
"We aren"t, by chance, going to a warm climate?" Monk hazarded hopefully. "It might be a good idea, as well as a comfortable one. Sounds like they"re takin" the girl toward Chile."
"It is a good idea," Doc agreed.
"Then we"re lightin" out after "em?"
Doc nodded. "We"re rolling south, brothers."
Chapter XII. DEATH UNMIXED.
COLON, Isthmus of Panama, is something near two thousand miles airline from New York.
Doc Savage, with no stops for gasoline, averaged a little under two hundred miles an hour over the route.
His low-wing plane, from floats to exhaust stacks, was ultra-streamlined. It had wheels; these cranked up.
It was past midnight when Doc dropped the plane on Colon Bay. The floats pushed up sheets of spray.
Phosph.o.r.escent wake stretched behind like a sparky skyrocket trail.
"Whew!" Monk mopped his forehead. "The plane on fire or somethin"?""Never satisfied!" Ham sneered. "New York was too cold. Now it"s too hot!"
The pig, Habeas Corpus, grunted under Monk"s chair, and staggered out. Habeas was airsick.
Renny folded his maps; he had been navigating, a.s.sisted by Long Tom"s radio bearings.
Johnny, the bony geologist, was still trying to figure how a quake could occur in quake proof country.
Doc Savage, at the controls, ruddered insh.o.r.e.
"Look-coming ahead of us!" Ham pointed with his sword cane. A shabby motor launch was crawling out. In it were scores of metal drums.
A thin brown man guided the craft. Trousers and a voluminous white turban comprised his garb.
"A Hindu!" Monk grunted.
The Hindu sheered his launch in close.
"Gasoline!" he called. "Good, high-test gasoline for sale, sahibs!"
The guy must be a mind reader," Monk muttered. Then, loudly: "How"d you know we had stopped for gas?"
"I did not know, sahib. Affoff! Alas! In Colon one has to work day and night to live. I meet all planes.
Sometimes make a sale. Sometimes, no."
"It"ll save time to let him fill us," Renny said.
Kya dam?" asked Doc. "What price?"
The moonlight was brilliant. Surprise was discernible on the boatman"s face as he heard Doc speak Hindustani with liquid perfection.
"Sixty cents the gallon, sahib."
Robber!" Monk grunted.
"See if his gas is O.K., Monk," Doc directed.
With a monkeylike agility, the homely chemist sprang to the launch, filled a bottle with gasoline, came back, and entered the plane. For a few moments he a.n.a.lyzed.
"It"s good gas," he declared at last.
"O. K. We"ll load up."
The Hindu boatman had a large-capacity hand pump on his launch.
"How much farther to Antof.a.gasta?" Monk asked as the loading went forward.
"Antof.a.gasta!" exclaimed the boatman, and ceased pumping.
" Sach bat! Yours is the second plane I have fueled tonight bound for Antof.a.gasta."
MONK was atop the cabin; at the words, he almost fell off.
"Was it a yellow plane?" he yelled. "
Han, sahib!" said the Hindu. "Yes, sir!"
Monk jumped up and down like an overjoyed ape. "What a break, Doc! We"re right on their trail!"
"Did you get a look at the occupants of the plane?" Doc asked the boatman.
Han! Yes! I saw a man who was most hideous from a great scar across his face. Another was a girl-a girl whose gown was gold."
"Holy cowl" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Renny. "She"s still wearing that rag!"
"There were others," said the Hindu. "I could not see their faces."
With the plane tanks filled, the Hindu cast off. The instant he had his money, he headed for sh.o.r.e.
Doc Savage noted the haste. His bronze features remained inscrutable, but the gold flakes of his eyes seemed to swirl more rapidly.
"The gang we want can"t be far ahead!" Renny thundered. "Let"s get this crate in the air, Doc!"
"Wait!" Doc rapped. "There was something suspicious about the way that turbaned bird lit out."
Doc leaped to Monk"s portable laboratory. Monk never went on an expedition without this. Doc got a syringe and a gla.s.s vial from the compact array of equipment.
Working swiftly, he drew samples from the fuel tanks. To these he added certain testing chemicals. He watched the reaction.
What he found caused him to flip the sample overboard.
"Drain the tanks!" he rapped.
"What"s wrong?" Renny demanded.
"That Hindu managed to dope the gas with two chemicals," Doc explained grimly. "The chemicals, separated, are harmless. Mingled, however, they form a powerful explosive, which the vibration of our motors would cause to detonate!"
Renny emitted a roar which probably carried for miles. "That turbaned coot!" He jerked the dump valves. Gasoline sheeted out.
Doc Savage dived over the side of the plane.
DOC SAVAGE"S physical exercises were fully as intensive as those by which he trained his mental faculties. And Doc had mastered the tricks by which strong men do seemingly impossible things.
One trick, he had garnered from the masters of it-the South Sea pearl divers. This was the ability to remain a prodigious time under water. It was made easier by charging the lungs with deep breaths, then diving with only a normal breath in the lungs.
Doc came up many yards from the floating plane. A few silent strokes brought him to land. He crawled through mangroves and under tall palms.The treacherous gasoline peddler had beached his launch down the sh.o.r.e. With the silence of a bronze ghost, Doc made for the spot. He soon found the launch.
The Hindu was not around.
Doc"s flashlight was waterproof. He popped its beam along the earth. The Hindu, taking no chances, had fled the vicinity. Imprints of his bare feet pointed inland.
Doc followed the trail.
The path entered the jungle. The going became crooked and tortuous. Vegetation was matted solidly on either side, overhead.
Doc kicked off his shoes and discarded his socks. His eyes, searching overhead, selected a bough. He crouched, sprang, caught the limb. Easily, he swung atop it. The footing swayed and bent. A great leap put him in another tree.
He mounted higher. Here, where creepers were less entangling, the going was easier. A man accustomed to city sidewalks, though, would have taken one look and said progress was impossible.
Guided by uncannily sharp eyes, Doc negotiated tremendous flights through s.p.a.ce. Often he was three-score feet above the earth.
Soon the lights of Colon came into view.
Doc dropped downward, landed lightly on the ground, and waited. The bronze giant was sure he had distanced the Hindu. The fellow would soon step from the entangling jungle foliage, he hoped.
Slight sounds advised Doc that he was right. The Hindu was tramping a jungle path without caution; he could hardly know his peril was now ahead.
Doc glided for the spot where the man would leave the vegetation. He moved soundlessly as a jungle cat.
Before he reached the path, there came a burst of blows and grunts. Sounds of a mad scuffle followed.
Doha"i!" shrieked the Hindu. "Help! Mercy!"
The sounds ended a moment after that, and there was deep silence.
DOC SAVAGE whipped forward. The noises and the cry could have but one meaning-some one had beaten him to his prey!
The bronze man neared the scene of the fight. He could hear men breathing. Two of them! The breath of one was rasped and labored.
Doc decided one man was choking the other. Aiming his flashlight, he jammed a white glare upon the scene of the battle.
The Hindu was flat on his back. His tongue protruded-because choking fingers were at his throat.