You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <strong>THE</strong> O<strong>THE</strong>R <strong>WORLD</strong> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<br />
He looked up at them. His jaw was<br />
square with determination.<br />
“So I’m not going to tell you a thing,”<br />
he added.<br />
MONK’S temper was chiefly notable<br />
for the suddenness with which it <strong>co</strong>uld get<br />
away from him. He squared off, yelled: “Put<br />
up your fists, you double-crosser! I’ll make<br />
hamburger out of you!”<br />
Renny reached over, shoved Monk,<br />
said: “Be quiet, you missing link! He must<br />
have some good reason for not talking to us!”<br />
“I’ll give him a good reason to tell<br />
us!” Monk shouted.<br />
Chris Columbus shook his head at<br />
them. “I don’t blame you for being hot. But<br />
here’s how it is. This whole thing is important<br />
to me. It’s the most important thing in my<br />
existence. I’ve devoted two years of my life to<br />
it, and if we fail now, I’ll go right on. I’ll<br />
<strong>co</strong>ntinue by myself, and I’ll feel better if no<br />
one but myself knows the true story.”<br />
Monk snapped, “That reason doesn’t<br />
make sense!”<br />
Chris nodded agreement.<br />
“There’s another reason,” he said.<br />
“I’ve mentioned it before. If I tell the story,<br />
you might get the idea I’m crazy, and lock me<br />
up in a <strong>za</strong>ny box somewhere instead of going<br />
on with it. I’m telling you flatly that the truth<br />
behind this is not easy to believe.”<br />
There was a finality about the young<br />
man’s tone that definitely put a period to the<br />
<strong>co</strong>nference. Even Monk subsided.<br />
Doc Savage worked with the shortwave<br />
radio—not the direction finder, for Ham<br />
was using that as he handled the <strong>co</strong>ntrols—<br />
until a response came over the air. The<br />
bronze man turned from the apparatus,<br />
obviously satisfied.<br />
Fifty miles ahead, somewhat to the<br />
west, was a spot marked on the chart as a<br />
flying field maintained in the northern<br />
wasteland by the Canadian government.<br />
“Land there,” Doc directed. “Long<br />
Tom and Johnny are meeting us there,” Doc<br />
advised. “I got in touch with them by radio<br />
and suggested they bring up another plane—<br />
the small speed ship that is painted a silver<br />
<strong>co</strong>lor.”<br />
The plane they were flying, one of<br />
the bronze man’s largest ships, was painted<br />
a bronze <strong>co</strong>lor which Doc used most<br />
frequently, and the hue was not one readily<br />
adapted to camouflage against snow.<br />
25<br />
The speed ship to which he referred<br />
was a smaller, single-motored job that was<br />
mostly motor and wings, although it also had<br />
a low landing speed due to scientific wing<br />
design and an equipment of efficient wing<br />
flaps. It was <strong>co</strong>ated with an iridescent silver<br />
material somewhat in the nature of the socalled<br />
“fish scale” paint applied to<br />
automobiles, and flying at any <strong>co</strong>nsiderable<br />
height it was almost invisible.<br />
The little plane was resting on the<br />
snow-<strong>co</strong>vered flying field, and they did not<br />
discern it until they were a hundred feet<br />
above.<br />
There was enough snow to make<br />
their landing difficult.<br />
“What we need,” said big-fisted<br />
Renny, “is ski equipment.”<br />
“Tercio has made no effort to equip<br />
his plane with skis instead of wheel gear,”<br />
Doc said. “There must be some purpose in<br />
that.”<br />
William Harper Johnny Littlejohn and<br />
Major Thomas J. Long Tom Roberts,<br />
remaining pair of Doc’s group of five aids,<br />
came running to meet them.<br />
Johnny Littlejohn was a man of two<br />
achievements. His big words, which he had a<br />
distressing habit of using upon everyone but<br />
Doc. And his ability as a geologist and<br />
archaeologist was unquestioned. He was a<br />
very long and thin man, longer and thinner<br />
than it seemed any man <strong>co</strong>uld be and still<br />
live. His clothing never fitted him, and he<br />
usually wore a monocle attached by a ribbon<br />
to his lapel, the monocle being a powerful<br />
magnifying glass which he used in the <strong>co</strong>urse<br />
of his work.<br />
Long Tom Roberts, the remaining<br />
member of the party, had a name that in no<br />
way applied to his appearance. He was not<br />
tall. The nickname had arisen out of his<br />
misadventure with a pirate cannon of the<br />
“long tom” variety in the past. He was a<br />
rather unhealthy-looking specimen, owning a<br />
<strong>co</strong>mplexion readily associated with a<br />
mushroom cellar. He did not look like a man<br />
with an international reputation as an<br />
electrical wi<strong>za</strong>rd.<br />
WHEN Doc Savage explained that<br />
he planned to take the smaller plane himself<br />
and fly on ac<strong>co</strong>mpanied only by Chris<br />
Columbus, the idea did not meet with much<br />
approval.
Change language