The Land of Terror

Chapter 19. ATTACK OF THE GNAWERS

"

IT’S Kar!" Ham muttered. "Kar made that fire!"

"Unless there are human beings residing in this place," Johnny pointed out.

"My thumb goes down on the idea that people may live in the crater," said Doc. "Thought that the comparatively defenseless human race could exist in here through the ages is a little preposterous. Anyway, we have seen no sign of monkeys or apes, which some evolutionists claim branched off from the same source stock as man."

"There’s not much doubt but that they did!" said Ham nastily, looking intently at Monk’s hairy, simian figure. "We have the living proof with us."

"A lot a shyster lawyer knows about evolution!" Monk grinned.

They set forth toward the fire again.

"Use caution!" Doc warned. "If it is only one of Kar’s men, we want to follow the chap to Kar. Or capture him alive and force him to tell us where Kar is!"

A stream of boiling-hot water barred their path. It was shallow, but too wide to leap across. They were forced to trail along it. But it only grew wider. It seemed to reach an indefinite distance. It was too hot for wading.

Doc solved the problem. Cutting two tough shoots not unlike bamboo, he fashioned a pair of makeshift stilts. The others quickly followed suit. With these, they negotiated the overly hot stream.

Oliver Wording Bittman, who wailed that he had never walked on stilts as a boy, was helped across the boiling water by Doc.

Soon after, the matlike jungle became horny with great upthrusts of rock.

At the very first of these stony juttings, Doc halted. He examined the rock with interest. He tapped at it quietly with his gun barrel. He borrowed Johnny’s glasses to use the magnifying lens on the left side.

"Hm-m-m!" he said thoughtfully.

If the bestial creodont which would have destroyed them except for the tobacco Doc threw in its eyes — if that animal was a mixture of many animals, so was this rock a mixture of many ores. Without proper apparatus for assaying, a great deal could not be told.

"What’s so interesting about that spotted dornick?" inquired Oliver Wording Bittman, fingering the scalpel on his watch chain.

"Just the wide variety of ores which it apparently contains," Doc replied.

Renny glanced at Doc. "You mean we may be near the region from which came the rare element or substance which is the basis of the Smoke of Eternity?"

"It’s a thought," Doc admitted.

GREATER was their caution now. The strange rocks became more plentiful. Indeed, the jungle gave way to a wilderness of glistening, mottled stone. This shimmering waste stretched directly before them until it ended against the sheer cliff of the crater side.

They penetrated farther. Signs of rare metals were all about. But it was doubtful if any were present in sizable paying quantities.

"I’d like to spend a month in here, just classifying rock types," declared Johnny, the geologist.

Doc Savage appraised the stony fastness.

"I want to look this over," he said. "I can move faster alone. You chaps wait here. The fire is on the other side. I’ll scout that, investigating this rock formation en route, then return."

His friends spread out among the strange rocks, inspecting curious formations. A couple of them sidled back into the jungle, intent on seeing if they couldn’t locate some kind of an edible herb. A meat diet would soon get monotonous, especially a meat with as strong a grassy taste as their primitive deer.

Doc continued into the rocks. They became difficult to get through, as though they were broken glass, the glass being as thick as a house.

This region of strange rocks was larger than he had thought. It must extend for at least two miles. It pressed against the cliff base its whole length.

In order to see the better, Doc clambered atop a vitrified mass.

Spang!

A bullet hit beside him. It sprayed wiry bits of lead into his bronze skin.

A quick leap put Doc in shelter. He was already in safety when the satanic laughter of the echoes came hopping across the arid rock wilderness.

The shot had come from the direction of his own friends!

Hardly more than a bronze blur in the steam-made twilight, Doc sped for his men.

He found them in excitement.

"Who fired that shot?" Doc demanded.

"None of us. It came from the jungle — to the right."

"Where’s Bittman?"

Oliver Wording Bittman was not about!

Doc sprang away. Herculean sinews carried his bronze form over knife-edged boulders and ridges around which it took the others minutes to go.

He topped a huge stone block.

Directly below him sprawled Bittman. The taxidermist’s body, so thin it was a skeleton and a few hard muscles, lay grotesquely atwist.

It was motionless!

A SAILING spring put Doc beside Bittman. His mighty bronze hands started to explore.

Spang!

Another shot!

The bullet would have slain Doc — if he had been one iota less quick on co-ordinating eye and muscles. For he had seen a rifle barrel stir out of the jungle foliage. He had flattened his giant form.

The rifle slug slicked through the space his body had vacated. It hit a rock and climbed away with a loud squawk.

Doc’s own gun rapped. Once! Twice!

A man came tumbling, slowly, stiffly, out of the foliage. He was a short, broad man. He had the look of a human frog. Doc had never seen him before.

The man piled into a dead heap. One bullet had drilled his forehead. The other had stopped his heart.

Several seconds, Doc waited. No more shots came. He used his sensitive ears to their fullest. His bronze nostrils twitched, sampling the warm, moist air that should bring him any alien odors.

He decided no more bushwhackers were about.

Oliver Wording Bittman stirred. A low, whimpering sound trailed from his lips. His head lifted.

Suddenly he seized Doc’s leg. He gave a terrific wrench. Doc, taken by surprise, came lightly to a knee. His brawny hands trapped Bittman’s arms.

"Oh!" Bittman choked. "Oh!"

He relaxed. Remorse came into his thin face.

"I — I saw a gun pointing at me!" Bittman moaned. "I realized it was Kar. I — I guess I must have — fainted. When I revived, my first thought was to fight for my liberty. I thought you were Kar’s man. I’m sorry. My head wasn’t clear — "

Doc nodded thoughtfully. "Fainting was the most fortunate thing you could have done in that case. It dropped you out of sight of the bushwhacker."

Striding over, Doc inspected the dead gunman.

Renny, Ham, Johnny, Long Tom and Monk came up.

"Ever see this man before?" Doc indicated the corpse.

None of them had.

"Come on!" Doc directed. "Let’s investigate that fire!"

They made all speed possible across the waste of stone. They were not shot at. The wall of jungle again took them in.

The mysterious fire was close. To their nostrils came the tang of its smoke.

"Quiet!" Doc warned.

Fifty yards more were traversed at a snail’s pace. But it is difficult for seven men to move through an incredibly dense tangle of plant growth without noise. Especially when one has no particular woodcraft, such as Oliver Wording Bittman.

"Wait here!" commanded Doc.

Then he was gone like a bronze shadow. The jungle tissue seemed to absorb him. There was no sound.

In a moment, Doc’s golden eyes were inspecting the clearing wherein smoked the fire.

NO one was there. The fire had about burned out. It had been lighted for cooking purposes, between two immense logs. The logs alone now burned.

Near by lay mining paraphernalia — picks, shovels, an empty dynamite box and some stray, clipped ends of fuse.

A long minute, Doc appraised the scene. Then he strode boldly into the clearing — his keen senses had shown him no bushwhackers lurked near by.

He circled the open space, then criss-crossed it several times. He moved swiftly. And when he had finished, his retentive mind had a picture of what had gone on in the little glade.

Kar’s men had camped here. They had been mining somewhere in the waste of strange rock.

They had been mining the unknown element or substance which was the basis of the Smoke of Eternity!

What had caused their departure was difficult to say. Either they had secured what they sought, or had been frightened away by the knowledge Doc and his men were near.

Doc called his men. They hurried up.

"At least six men are in the gang — probably five, now that we got one." Doc indicated a half dozen tracks — only his dexterous eye could determine they were marks of as many distinct men. "Of the four men Kar sent out of the United States on the Sea Star, we did for one at the coral atoll, as he tried to bomb our plane. To the surviving three, he has added from the crew of the speedy yacht which took his men off the Sea Star, or from some other source."

"But where did they go?" muttered Oliver Wording Bittman. The taxidermist, although his fingers were still too shaky to play with the scalpel on his watch chain, had recovered amazingly.

"We’ll trail them," Doc declared.

It taxed Doc’s woodcraft hardly at all to find the trail. Broad and plain, smaller ferns and shrubs trampled down, it led off around the crater. A half mile, they had simple going.

Then the way came to an abrupt end!

It terminated at one of the many shallow, wide streams of hot water. As earlier in the day, Doc employed stilts to cross this obstacle.

But he could find no trail on the other side!

"They used a raft or a boat of some sort!" he called to his men.

"We’ll take one side and you the other until we find where they landed!" Ham offered.

But this soon proved unfeasible. The slough of hot water quickly became a great swamp. Although this water was far from boiling in temperature, it was still too hot to wade. And some of the channels were too deep for their stilts and too wide to jump.

"We’ll have to give it up!" Doc said regretfully.

Time had been passing swiftly. It was nearing dark again, and Doc made preparations looking to a safe night.

"We’ll take a lesson from the fact that the top of a tree near us was browsed off last night," he decided. "Each man will seek refuge up a separate tree. That way, if one meets with an accident, it won’t spell doom for the others."

The outburst of an awful fight between a pair of reptilian monsters less than a mile away lent speed to their search for a satisfactory location. The prehistoric giants were beginning their nocturnal bedlam.

The adventurers found a grove of the palmlike ferns which made an ideal set of perches. Up these, they hurriedly clambered.

Once more, night poured like something solid and intensely black into the crater of weird Thunder Island.

A FEW words were exchanged in the sepia void. Then conversation lagged. They knew the slightest sound was liable to draw the unwelcome attention of some reptilian titan.

Ham had selected a bower near Monk.

"So I can throw a club at Monk if he starts snoring," Ham chuckled.

Within half an hour after darkness fell, the awful bedlam of the dinosaurs had reached its grisly zenith. The cries of the things were indescribable. Often there came the revolting odor of great meat eaters prowling near by.

Suddenly Doc discovered a glowing cigarette end in a fern top near the thick jungle.

"Watch it!" he called. "The light might show Kar our position!"

"I’m sorry!" called Oliver Wording Bittman’s voice. A moment later, the cigarette gyrated downward, to burst in a shower of sparks.

Doc and his men were tired — they had not slept a wink the night previous. Although the satanic noises within the crater were as fearsome as on the night before, they were becoming accustomed to them. Noises that made their ears ring and icicles roll down their spines now worried them no more than passing elevated railway trains bother a dweller in the Bronx.

But Doc had developed a sort of animal trait of sleeping with one eye open. He heard a faint noise. He thought he saw a light some distance away.

Later, he was sure he detected a distinct, dragging noise very close!

The sound stopped. Nothing immediate came of it. Doc dropped off to sleep. Too many monsters were prowling about continually to be bothered with one noise.

A loud shuffling beneath their trees aroused him again. He listened.

There seemed to be scores of great beasts below!

"Hey!" yelled Monk an instant later. "Some darn thing is eatin’ on the bottom of my tree!"

To Doc’s keen ears came the sound of grinding teeth at work on the base of Monk’s fern. Then big incisors began on his own tree!

Capable bronze hands working swiftly, Doc picked off a fragment of his own shirt. He put a flame to it, got it blazing, and dropped it. The burning fragment slithered from side to side as it fell. It left a trail of sparks. But it gave light enough to disclose an alarming scene.

A colony of monster, prehistoric beavers had attacked them!

The creatures were about the size of bears. They had the flat, black, hairless tails of an ordinary beaver. But the teeth they possessed were immensely larger, even in proportion.

A determined fierceness characterized the beasts. Although they made no snarlings or squealings, the very rapidity of their angry breathing showed they were bent on accomplishing something.

And that was the destruction of Doc and his men!

DOC SAVAGE’S gaze moved quickly to one side. He had remembered the dragging noise heard earlier. He sought the spot where it had ended. A powerful suspicion was gripping him.

He was right!

One of the great prehistoric beavers lay dead! The rear legs were tied together — tied with a rope!

"

Kar is responsible for this!" he clipped at the others.

"How could — "

"He has visited this crater before. He knows how the weird animals here react. He knew it was a trait with these big beavers to avenge the death of one of their number. So he had his men kill one and drag it here. The animals followed the trail. They can scent us up the trees. They think we’re the killers."

At this point, the fragment of Doc’s shirt burned out.

To his ears came a gru-u-ump, gru-u-mpchorus. Lusty teeth working upon their tree retreats! And from the sound, they wouldn’t take long to bring down the giant ferns! They seemed to bite in like axes.

"Thank Heaven!" came Oliver Wording Bittman’s sudden gasp. "My tree is close enough to other growth that I can crawl to safety! Is there anything I can do to help you men? Perhaps I can decoy them away?"

"Not a chance!" Monk snorted. "There must be a hundred of them! And they’re chewing so fast they couldn’t hear anything! Say! My tree is already beginning to sway!"

Doc Savage drew his gun.

He fired it downward. A single report! It sounded terrific.

An astounding thing promptly happened!

The entire colony of prehistoric beavers quit gnawing. They stampeded! Away through the jungle they went at top speed! Not an animal remained behind!

"Bless me!" Monk chuckled. "What kinda magic you got in that smoke-pole, Doc?"

Doc Savage was actually as surprised as the others. Then the explanation came to him. How simple!

"What is the method the beaver uses to warn its fellows of danger?" he asked.

"It hauls off and gives the water a crack with its tail," Monk replied.

"That explains it," declared Doc. "These giant prehistoric beavers use the same danger warning, evidently. They mistook the sound of the shot for an alarm given by one of their number."

Monk burst into loud laughter.