Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace by Kenneth Robeson, Lester Dent, Will Murray Read Free Book Online Page B

group of assistants. He had been in Chicago, and the bronze man had radioed him to fly to Missouri to case the vicinity of the mystery manse in anticipation of their arrival.
    The hairy chemist worked the radio for a time and came back saying, “His plane landed in a government landing field, all right. But he ain’t come back for it. Must be still searchin’ around.”
    “Maybe we had better ask the Missouri State Highway Patrol to investigate,” Ham suggested.
    “Long Tom and Johnny are near,” Doc told him. “We will have them look into the thing.”
    Ham looked slightly surprised. “Where are Long Tom and Johnny?”
    “En route to the scene from Toronto.”
    The bronze man turned over the controls to Monk then switched on the radio microphone. Behind inspection ports, tubes glowed.
    “Long Tom—Johnny!” he called into the microphone.
    “Johnny speaking,” answered a rather scholastic voice from the loudspeaker.
    Johnny was William Harper Littlejohn, the long-worded geologist and archeologist of the group. He was addicted to the linguistic equivalent of jawbreakers, which he never inflicted on Doc Savage. Johnny was an individual so tall and thin that it had been said of him that he could take a bath in a rifle barrel—an exaggeration, of course. But not much of one.
    Doc gave the location of the landing field, which was a government-operated emergency field in Millard.
    “You fellows had better drop up there and see if anything has happened to Renny,” he directed. Then he switched off the apparatus.
    Hours later, they heard from Long Tom Roberts.
    “We found Renny. He’s pretty bunged up. Claims a wild Indian tried to scalp him.”
    “What happened to the Indian?” prompted Doc.
    “Renny says he got clean away. But he got Hiawatha’s tomahawk away from him, and he’s talking about hunting him down and giving him a close haircut with it.”
    “Tell Renny to hold his horses. We are less than an hour away.”
    “Right,” said Long Tom.
    “Anything else?” asked Doc.
    “Yeah. Johnny says the tomahawk looks like the ones they used to make in the old days. But it’s not old-looking at all.”
    Doc requested, “Put Johnny on.”
    A moment later, Johnny came over the loudspeaker.
    “Salutations, Doc.”
    Which was actually a modest greeting for the bony archeologist. He loved his big words, a relic from the days when he occupied the Natural Science chair at a prestigious university.
    “Tell me about the tomahawk,” Doc requested.
    “It looks as if it was made last week. The rawhide thongs show no signs of aging. But to make one like this, you would have to be practically a woods-dwelling Sac or Fox.”
    “What did he say?” Ham asked, brow puckering.
    “Johnny just named two of the tribes who formerly inhabited Missouri and surrounding states,” explained Doc.
    “Have you investigated the mystery of the disappearing house?” asked Doc into the microphone.
    “Not yet. We were too busy hunting down Renny.”
    “Do so now. We will be there directly.”
    “Signing off,” said Johnny. The loudspeaker went dead.
    Ham spoke up. “What do you make of it, Doc?”
    “It is very strange,” admitted the bronze man.
    Monk scratched behind an ear, noticed that Habeas had ventured out into the open and, picking him up, scratched one of the shoat’s ludicrously long ears, too.
    “Which?” he wondered. “The disappearin’ house, or the scalpin’ wild Indian?
    “Both,” said Doc Savage, turning his attention back to the night sky visible through the airship’s windshield.

Chapter V
    BEAUTY IN BURLAP
    THE OLD MAN with the hairy ears was injured—the side of his hairless head had been clubbed with something a time or two. Four of his pockets, two in the pants and two in the coat, held pint whiskey bottles; two of these had the seals unbroken. And there was no reason to doubt that he was gloriously drunk.
    Gull frowned, suddenly suspecting that Spook Davis and this old wolf had merely