"They"re tremendously strong, even for their size," Monk breathed. "Dumb, too, or he wouldn"t waste his strength bustin" out through a wall like that."t The pinhead followed his fellow giants out of town.
DOC SAVAGE tooled the gyro after the monster men. He kept fairly high and switched on the brilliant Landing lights. These illuminated the giants.
The monsters were running down the road which led to the lake sh.o.r.e.
Doc Savage advanced the gyro accelerator. The ship did not have a conventional propeller. Its speed was regulated by the inclination of rudderlike vanes affixed to the tips of the rotating wings. Advancing the accelerator set these vanes to digging into the air at a greater angle.
Doc had discovered that the giants were following a car. The top of the machine bore a cl.u.s.ter of four large loudspeakers.
"That"s the guy who tried for us with the machine gun!"" Monk declared.
Doc sent the windmill plane toward the fleeing car. They Were close to it when a man stuck his head out of the rear door.
It was Griswold Rock. The fat man flailed about with his pudgy fists; he drove fierce blows back into the car at a target which could not be seen. He made imploring gestures with his arms, as if pleading for help, then was yanked back out of sight into the car.
A man swung out, clinging to the running board of the automobile. He held an aircraft-type machine gun harnessed to a belt about his waist. With one hand he elevated the weapon. Its muzzle flamed red fire. The bullet stream -- a reddish thread of tracer -- missed the gyro by fully a hundred feet, then sought the target in wild sweeps. The bouncing car was not a foundation conductive to marksmanship.
"I"ll fix that cookie!" Monk gritted, and leaned out with his superfirer.
Monk"s gun hooted, and the man on the car sagged. Monk was a remarkable shot when he could see his target. Mercy bullets from his rapid-firer had stricken the gunner with instant unconsciousness.
Hands inside the car caught the senseless man, however, and hauled him inside.
"Now, if I can pot the driver through the top of the machine!" Monk chortled.
He never had a chance to try this. Doc suddenly whipped the gyro away from the spot.
"Hey!" Monk yelled. "We may be able to bag -- "
Doc merely pointed at the fuel gauge.
"I made it here non-stop from New York!" Renny groaned. "Fuel is about gone."
"We"d best get far enough away that the giants won"t see us when we make a landing," Doc offered.
The engine died, fuel gone, as the bronze man was bringing the ship down some miles to the north. He had picked a spot near the lake sh.o.r.e.
"What a break!" Monk groaned.
Chapter 20. THE WINGED PERIL.
DOC SAVAGE had selected an emergency landing spot near the lake sh.o.r.e for a specific purpose. He dug binoculars out of the c.o.c.kpit duffle pocket, then quitted the windmill plane.
He ran for the beach. Here, as along most of this wilderness sh.o.r.e, there was timber. Doc sought a large tree. He did not use his flashlight, but felt about ill the black night with his hands.
Finding a towering pine, he mounted. Monk and Renny, puzzled, clambered up after him.
The monsters, from the direction they had taken, should have reached the lake sh.o.r.e perhaps two miles away to the westward. Doc focused his binoculars in that direction.
"What"s the idea?" Renny asked.
Doc pa.s.sed the binoculars to him. "Take a look."
Renny did so. In the jet night he could not see the giants. But he did discern tiny spots which glowed with all un earthly purple luminance.
"Say, what"s them light patches?" he demanded.
"A chemical compound akin to phosphorus," Doc explained. "The stuff begins to glow after it is exposed to the air half an hour or so."
Monk, astride a limb below, emitted a knowing snow. "The dope was in the shotgun slugs you plugged at the giants!"
"It was," Doc admitted. The bronze man fell to watching the luminous spots which marked the position of the monsters. The glowing patches moved out into the lake and became stationary.
The great loud-speaker voice of Hack, thundering out, carried over the two miles with surprising volume.
"Bring the speed boats!" Hack called.
A moment later, in answer to the red-necked man"s behest, marine engines sputtered into life. Boats had been waiting out in the take. They sped for the sh.o.r.e.
"Three of them!" Monk decided, after counting the craft. The giants went aboard the speed boats, and the craft headed out into the lake.
The glowing spots on the giants seemed to grow larger, although the monsters were being carried away.
"They"re trying to rub the shiny stuff off," Renny thumped. ""Their efforts just spread the dope."
Doc Savage got careful bearings on the direction taken by the launch.
Distance finally swallowed the glowing smears on the giants.
DOC AND his two men moved down the lake sh.o.r.e to the point where the boats had been boarded.
They found the car with the loud-speaker equipment. It was parked near the sh.o.r.e, deserted.
Later, Doc traced the license number of the vehicle. The machine had been purchased in Detroit a few weeks before by a man giving his name as Pere Teston, but who answered the description of the slain Caldwell.
On its side the car bore the advertising of a political party which was now campaigning. It developed that the car had no connection with the political organization, however.
"They put the sign on it so the loud-speaker wouldn"t attract suspicion," decided big-fisted Renny.
The men returned to Trapper Lake.
The town was m an uproar. Women still screamed, sobbed and had hysterics. Men galloped about, wild-eyed, their persons bristling with weapons. Almost every one was barefooted, having been routed out of bed. A number of old fashioned male nightgowns were to be seen.
The house into which the pinhead monster had crawled was a wreck. A number of fences had been torn down; gardens were trampled. The door of the Guide"s Hotel had been demolished. Shapeless tracks of the big, armored feet were thick.
"One of the infernal giants just b.u.t.ted the door down and climbed in," reported the dapper Ham.
He indicated the hotel door with his sword cane. "I made a pa.s.s at the brute. Then retreat looked good, so I jumped from the handiest window."
"They came after Griswold Rock!" declared Long Tom. Doc and his men scattered, and devoted themselves to attending to the injured.
The giants had seized four Trapper Lake men in the course of their raid. Using only their leviathan hands, they had crushed every vestige of life from these victims. The bones of the unfortunates had been broken, limbs wrenched from their bodies, their skulls crushed. "I saw one of the men get killed!" wailed a Trapper Lake citizen. "A giant just picked him up, took his head in both hands, and mashed it like you and me would bust an egg."
HAVING STAYED awake the rest of the night, Trapper Lake looked around in the morning and saw something like fifty newspaper men. While there were no long distance telephone lines out of town, telegraph wires paralleled the Timberland Line railroad, and wires had conveyed news to the outside world of the visit of the giants.
The press took fire. Almost half the pa.s.sengers on the next train were newspaper reporters, and the other half newspaper cameramen.
More correspondents came by plane. A blimp flew up from Detroit, carrying the reporters and cameramen of a tabloid newspaper.
It dawned on newspapers in every large city in the United States that here was the explanation of the strange "Beware the Monsters!" advertis.e.m.e.nts which they had been publishing.
A tri-motored speed plane came in with the sound cameras of a news-reel concern. Two enterprising journalists brought their own radio stations and operators.
Before noon, Trapper Lake stood on the front pages of every newspaper in the country m two-inch black type, or larger. Pictures were telephoned. Maps were drawn with X marking the spot where Trapper Lake stood.
Some enterprising city editors, unable to get pictures, had their artists draw giants. Exaggerated stories were flying around, so the artists drew their giants tossing houses around.
The giants grew in size with every repet.i.tion of the tale. Trapper Lake had its share of tall story tellers, and these fellows outdid themselves. The giants became bigger and bigger.
Word got out that Doc Savage was on the scene. A wild rush to interview the bronze man ensued. A New York newspaper wired its reporter, promising him a year"s vacation in Europe, all expenses paid, if he could get a first-person story from Doc.
The reporter hunted like a wild man, but failed to earn the year in Europe.
Doc Savage, being possessed of a hearty disapproval of seeing his name in public print, had withdrawn to the seclusion of a clearing some miles from town. Here he and his men discussed and consulted with each other.
They had done some sleuthing before the newspaper locust swarm had arrived.
"I checked on the finger prints of the giant"s hand which Renny dug up," Long Tom said.
He mopped perspiration off his pale brow. "You remember that bird, Nubby Bronson, who was taken from the Trapper Lake jail?"
"Sure," Monk grunted.
"The finger prints of that big hand and Nubby Bronson"s prints were the same in design."
"Well, I"m a son-of-a-gun!" cried bony Johnny. "They grabbed Nubby Bronson out of jail and made him into a giant!"
Ham, his sword cane tucked under an arm, came up. He had been working with the portable radio. "I"ve broadcast a description of those giants, as you directed," he told Doc. "They answer the description of the criminals whom Caldwell got out of jails all over the country."
"We know now why Caldwell was collecting them," said Monk. "He was gathering them for Pere Teston to make into giants."
With that, Monk scratched the winglike ears of his pig, Habeas Corpus.
The dapper Ham scowled at the pleasantly ugly chemist and his equally homely pet.
"The pattern must have been mislaid the day you two were made!" he snorted.
Monk sighed, as if he had stood about as many jibes as he could bear.
The pig, Habeas Corpus, was looking intently at Ham, as if he resented the dapper lawyer"s words. The pig opened his mouth.
The thing which happened then always drove Ham into a screaming rage. The pig seemed to speak distinct words: "I"m gettin" dang tired of the stuff this funny-faced lawyer calls humor."
Ham purpled very indignantly. He gripped his sword cane.
"Dramatics!" sneered the voice from the pig. "Ain"t he a funny-lookin" snipe in them rags?"
Ham was particularly touchy on the subject of his clothing. He still wore the garb which had been ruined in the bramble thicket, although it was far from his liking. He slashed suddenly with his sword cane.
Monk dodged wildly to get clear.
Monk had learned ventriloquism solely for the purpose of having Habeas Corpus express scathing opinions of Ham. The business of the talking pig, although ridiculous to watch, invariably filled Ham with rage.
The conversation reverted to the giants.
"But for what purpose did Pere Teston make the big fellows?" Renny pondered.
THE WORLD got the answer to that question that afternoon. To the mayors of four great cities, the mail brought letters. The cities were Detroit, Cleveland, New York, arid Chicago. The letters bore Trapper Lake postmarks.
They had been mailed during the visit of the giants! The four mayors had read the newspapers, so they knew what had happened in Trapper Lake. They could not fail to know it -- the news was in scareheads all over the front pages..
The four mayors opened the letters with curiosity. All four got the shock of their lives.
The Detroit mayor received his missive first. It read: YOUR HONOR:.
Have you read the "monster" advertis.e.m.e.nts in the newspapers recently? Those were part of my campaign. Possibly you have read of the episode at Trapper Lake last night. If not, I advise you to doso.
My giants visited Trapper Lake for a reason other than the seizure of Griswold Rock, although the latter was necessary. I wanted the world --particularly Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Chicago -- to realize the power of my giants.
You will consult with leading bankers of your city, advising them to a.s.semble five million dollars. The sum is to be in small, unmarked bills.
To-morrow you will receive a letter of instruction about getting the money into my hands. That letter has been posted.
If my terms are not complied with, my giants will visit your city. They will not be in a pleasant mood.
They will kill people, and wreak incalculable damage. One giant will be designated to hunt you out personally.
You may think machine guns and gas will be effective against my giants. Do not be fooled. They wear bullet-proof armor, and they have special gas masks.
I trust you will not make the mistake of thinking this is a crank"s letter.
PERE TESTON.