IN THIS ISSUE: - Savagepedia

The MAN of BRONZE
By Kenneth Robeson
A complete book length novel of the exploits of Doc Savage and his five companions; a thrilling saga of a scrappy outfit hunting
for a treasure and being hunted in turn! This quintessential Savage tale of adventure was written by Kenneth Robeson (a.k.a.,
Lester Dent) and was originally published in Doc Savage Magazine in 1933. We present Part Two in this issue of Shark Bytes.
D
THE ENEMY
oc Savage was the last of the six to enter the
adjoining room. But he was inside the room in
less than ten seconds. They moved with amazing
speed, these men.
Doc flashed across the big library. The speed with
which he traversed the darkness, never disturbing an
article of furniture, showed the marvelous development
of his senses. No jungle cat could have done better.
Expensive binoculars reposed in a desk drawer, a
high-power hunting rifle in a corner cabinet. In splits of
seconds, Doc had these, and was at the window.
He watched, waited.
No more shots followed the first two.
Four minutes, five, Doc bored into the night with the
binoculars. He peered into every office window within
range, and there were hundreds. He scrutinized the
spidery framework of the observation tower atop the
skyscraper under construction. Darkness packed the
labyrinth of girders, and he could discern no trace of
the bushwhacker.
"He's gone!" Doc concluded aloud.
No sound of movement followed his words. Then
the window shade ran down loudly in the room where
they had been shot at. The five men stiffened, then
relaxed at Doc's low call. Doc had moved soundlessly
to the shade and drawn it.
Doc was beside the safe, the lights turned on, when
they entered.
The window glass had been clouted completely out
of the sash. It lay in glistening chunks and spears on the
luxuriant carpet.
The glowing message which had been on it seemed
destroyed forever.
"Somebody was laying for me outside," Doc said, no
worry at all in his well-developed voice. "They
evidently couldn't get just the aim they wanted at me
through the window. When we turned out the light to
look at the writing on the window, they thought we
were leaving the building. So they took a couple of
shots for wild luck."
"Next time, Doc, suppose we have bulletproof glass
in these windows!" Renny suggested, the humor in his
voice belying his dour look.
"Sure," said Doc. "Next time! We're on the eightysixth
floor, and it's quite common to be shot at here!"
Ham interposed a sarcastic snort. He bounced over,
waspish, quick-moving, and nearly managed to thrust
his slender arm through the hole the bullet had
tunneled in the brick wall.
"Even if you put in bulletproof windows, you'd have
to be careful to set in front of them!" he clipped dryly.
Doc was studying the hole in the safe door, noting
particularly the angle at which the powerful bullet had
entered. He opened the safe. The big bullet, almost
intact, was embedded in the safe rear wall.
Renny ran a great arm into the safe, grasped the
bullet with his fingers. His giant arm muscles corded as
he tried to pull it out. The fist that could drive bodily
through inch-thick planking with perfect ease was
defied by the embedded metal slug.
"Whew!" snorted Renny. "That's a job for a drill and
cold chisels."
Saying nothing, merely as if he wanted to see if the
bullet was stuck as tightly as Renny said, Doc reached
into the safe.
Great muscles popping up along his arm suddenly
split his coat sleeve wide open. He glanced at the
ruined sleeve ruefully, and brought his arm out of the
safe. The bullet lay loosely in his palm.
R
enny could not have looked more astounded had
a spike-tailed devil hopped out of the safe. The
expression on his puritanical face was ludicrous.
Doc weighed the bullet in his palm. The lids were
drawn over his golden eyes. He seemed to be giving
his marvelous brain every chance to work—and he
was. He was guessing the weight of that bullet within a
few grains, almost as accurately as a chemist's scale
could weigh it.
"Seven hundred and fifty grains," he decided, "That
makes it a .577 caliber Nitro-Express rifle. Probably the
gun that fired that shot was a double-barreled rifle."
Shark Bytes #2 - October 2004 36