Part 9 (1/2)
The setting of the sun came about abruptly, due to the rising of a bank of clouds in the west simultaneous with the descent of the blazing orb.
”I don't think we're doin' the brainy thing!” said one of the men in the cab.
”n.o.body asked you!” growled Hack.
”Maybe not. But I don't get the idea of finis.h.i.+n' off the thing in the truck. After all the trouble we've gone to!”
”Sh-h-h!” hissed Hack. ”It might hear you. This one ain't workin' so good. You know that. So the boss has decided to get rid of it. We'll bring up others for the big push on New York. d.a.m.n it! We'll have to get another headquarters.”
”I hope that explosion got the bronze guy!” growled another ”Dummy up!” said Hack, scowling at Long Tom. ”This guy's got his ears unpinned.”
”0. K., 0. K.,” the other muttered. ”What are we gonna do after we get rid of our load?”
”Light out for the Trapper Lake country,” replied rednecked Hack.
Night clamped down blackly. Long Tom kept accurate check on their progress, and their whereabouts.
They followed the State highway for a time, then turned off. He could see the highway markers.
Long Tom made no attempt at a break. His captors kept eyes upon him all the time they were on theferry. Hands remained in gun-bulged pockets. His slightest move would have meant sudden death.
The van rolled on -- for hours, it seemed. The terrain became hilly. At almost every brook they stopped and added water to the radiator.
At last, the van halted. There was a stirring in the rear. Long Tom peered through the window.
Caldwell appeared from the after regions of the van. Ahead of him he propelled the steel-haired girl, Jean Morris.
Her wrists were handcuffed at her sides; adhesive tape crisscrossed her lips. She could only glare rage with her metallic eyes and make angry noises through her nostrils.
The pair were illuminated faintly by the backglow of the van's headlights.
Caldwell stared at Long Tom. He spat disgustedly. ”Don't let this guy get away!” he warned. ”He's probably been listening to you guys talk, and knows plenty.”
”We ain't been talkin',” lied the red-necked Hack. Long Tom kept his pale face expressionless. In his listening, he had garnered one really important morsel of information. This gang seemed to have a headquarters in the vicinity of Trapper Lake, Michigan.
”How do we dish it out to him?” asked Hack, ”Just tie him in the van cab,” said Caldwell. ”Two of you birds come along with me. The other two are enough to do the job.”
”Sure,” said Hack. ”I know the spot. I was raised in this country. The place is right ahead. It'll work swell.”
”It'd better,” Caldwell said grimly.
The van rolled ahead, leaving CaIdwell, the steel-haired girl, and the two thugs behind. The ponderous vehicle covered perhaps two hundred yards, then angled into a disused side road.
The headlights picked out a tunnel-like hole which slanted down into the side of a hill. Some time in the past, an attempt at mining had been made here. The tunnel was rather large -- big enough for the van to be driven in.
The mumble of the engine became terrific thunder as the van entered the bore.
For the first time, Long Tom detected the vibration of something of great size moving in the van rear. The monster was apparently disturbed by the roar of the engine.
”I hope the thing don't try to get out!” Hack muttered.
”The van will hold it,” grunted the other.
Long Tom tested the handcuff links uneasily. He was stronger than nine out of ten run-of-the-street men.
His muscles, however, were unequal to snapping the stout steel links.
”Gettin' uneasy, eh?” jeered Hack The fellow drew another set of handcuffs from his pocket He grasped Long Tom's leg. The electrical wizard kicked and pitched about violently. The driver cursed. His attention was distracted; the van crashed into the tunnel wall and stopped.
Both men seized Long Tom. Clubbing him with pistols, straining, grunting, they managed to link his ankle manacles to the steering-post ”Let's go!” snapped Hack.
They piled out of the cab.
Long Tom heard sc.r.a.ping sounds, then saw the reddish flicker of machete. He leaned out. Although his feet were secured, he could see the two men. They were applying a match to a fuse which led into a large steel tool locker slung under the van body.
The fuse hissed, and spat sparks. The two men whirled and ran.
THE VAN motor had killed itself when the machine collided with the tunnel side, and inside the tunnel there was comparative silence, except for the noise of the running men. Somehow, to Long Tom, it was as if the receding steps were in actuality the departure of his own life-ghost.
He wrenched madly, fighting the handcuff links. The steel circiets sc.r.a.ped skin off his wrists and ankles, cut flesh, and rasped tendons. And they held him.
Back in the van interior, the monster stirred uneasily. On the faint chance that he might arouse the thing and cause it to break free, and in some manner accomplish the saving of himself, Long Tom began to yell.
”Bust out!” he shrilled. ”They're trying to kill us!”
There was a violent stir, a terrific impact inside the van; then great blows.
The thing realized something sinister was under way. Either it had understood Long Tom or had sensed the danger.
Long Tom peered out of the cab, stretching as far as the handcuff links would permit. The sparking fire had crawled along the fuse until it was lost to view inside the box.
The monster's struggles caused the van body to rock slightly on the springs.
Long Tom widened his mouth to yell again. The shout, however, never came. Instead, he sealed his lips and listened.
He had caught a sound, a sound so weird as to defy description. A fantastic trilling note -- it might have been the plaintive cry of some exotic feathered thing lost in the umbrageous depths of the ancient mine.
It was the sound of Doc Savage.
”Doc!” Long Tom yelled.
The giant man of bronze came plunging down the declivitous mine tunnel, flashlight in hand. He moved the beam occasionally to avoid larger lumps of rock which had fallen from the roof of the abandoned diggings.
The bronze man wrenched at the underslung tool locker into which the fuse ran. It was of steel, heavily constructed like the rest of the van. Opening it was work for a key, or for a steel-cutting torch. Inside the van the monster struggled futilely.
Doc Savage leaped to the rear. A huge padlock secured the doors, too strong to break! He whipped to the cab and grasped the stout handcuff chain which linked Long Tom to the steering column.