The Red Skull

XXII — The Death Light

The King Killer was uneasy.

He crouched in the gloom beside a tool shed. His cowboy hat was hauled low; his gabardine coat draped about him like a toga. He was perspiring and grinding his teeth.

The dam was only a few rods distant.

More than half-an-hour had passed since Buttons Zortell’s departure. Nothing had happened.

The Chief had ordered shooting down in the chasm beneath the great dam. Yet none had started!

He had expected Doc Savage to appear in the vicinity. But there had been no sign of the Bronze Man.

The only occurrence had been a bit of movement the masked man had thought that he observed out on the dam near the center. He had watched…

…only to discern nothing more. He had dismissed it as the breeze blowing a tarpaulin.

Why didn’t something happen? The man was anxious that his photoelectric death trap be sprung. Everything would be settled by that! His enemies eliminated! His gang wiped out so that none could demand a share in his ill-gotten gains! The Mountain Desert Construction Company would be bankrupt by the loss of their dam! A perfect master stroke!

The man stood up. He had decided he would look around and see why nothing had occurred. If necessary, he would give Doc Savage a tip which would send him into the chasm.

The man turned. His hair raised under his hat! A stifled croak came through his bandanna mask!

Doc Savage stood before him! And there was a terrible light in the Bronze Man’s golden eyes!

The masked man whipped out a six-gun. But a bronze hand struck with the dazzling speed and force of a lightning flash! The gun was knocked far away.

Terror-stricken, the masked man spun and fled. The most convenient route lay across the top of the partially completed dam. He went that way.

An unexpected event now occurred.

Out of the great maw of the spillway tunnel popped another running man — Buttons Zortell! He too chose the handiest avenue of flight — the dam top.

The 2 men — Master and hireling — bounded onto the dam almost together. They ran wildly for the opposite side of the dam.

Looking back, they were amazed and relieved to see their bronze Nemesis was not overhauling them.

In fact, he was not yet upon the dam!

Then the masked man saw a six-gun. It lay on the dam top in plain view.

The fellow did not stop to reason how the weapon had come there. He saw it only as a means of murder — a tool delivered to him out of a cloudy night sky that he might slay the giant Bronze Man whom he feared beyond all beings.

Scooping the gun up, the King Killer whirled. He took a deliberate aim at Doc Savage and pulled the trigger.

Came a slamming roar!

But no bullet left the gun muzzle. Instead, there leaped forth a dazzling white flame sheet. The six-gun barrel had been tamped with photographic flashlight powder!

The masked man screamed! He dashed a hand at his blinded eyes. His mask was shoved off.

He knew his cold-blooded attempt to kill Doc Savage had brought his own death!

The flash had actuated the photoelectric bomb!

He launched a scream of terror! He was afraid of Death.

Another sheet of flame — a thousand times greater than the puff of flashlight powder! — crawled up out of the water in front of the dam. Its blaze lighted briefly the face of the Master schemer.

It was Nate Raff!

A flood of muddy water boiled up-and-up and seemed to upset the vast dam structure.

Nate Raff and Buttons Zortell vanished. They sank into a howling, foaming, grinding torrent of muddy water, concrete, and steel. The canyon walls quivered from the awful shock of the great dam turning over and tearing to pieces. Boulders as large as cars were jarred off the cliffs.

Spray was driven upward hundreds-of-feet on the chasm sides. The avalanche hit the power houses and they seemed to melt. The whole lake took on a crawling life and sped for the mouth of Red Skull canyon!

Safe on the chasm sides, Doc Savage and his men watched. No word was spoken of the flash-powder-loaded gun which Doc had placed upon the dam — the gun which had delivered backfire justice!

“So it was Nate Raff!” Renny said wonderingly. “But Doc, he was kidnapped from the plane.”

“No doubt he lied to us about that,” Doc pointed out. “The fact that 11 passengers took off in the plane and 11 burned bodies were found was my first tip-off to watch the man Nate Raff.”

“But he was a passenger on the plane!”

“If the truth is ever known, we’ll probably find Raff hired a man to fly in his place. And he himself arranged the destruction of the plane. I think Raff faked his own death so as to be clear of suspicion. No one suspects a dead man.

“He could have hired agents to buy the lakebed from the bankrupt Mountain Desert concern and sell the gas rights for a lump sum. He would not have had to appear in the transaction. You recall that he had established himself under a fake name — ‘Nick Clipton’.”

Ham now arrived. He had the surviving Mountain Desert partners in tow.

Ossip Keller and Richard O’Melia took a single look at the moaning, squirming flood where their expensive dam had been. And both seemed ready to faint!

At a word from Doc, pretty Lea Aster began explaining to the pair that they were not ruined men. Not with a great deposit of very valuable gas at hand! Doc thought slyly that they might enjoy receiving the news from the entrancing blonde.

Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny were guarding the captives. These latter worthies would soon be en route to Doc’s up-state New York establishment. They would be made into honest men whether they wished it or not.

Over where Lea Aster was talking to a suddenly delighted Ossip Keller and Richard O’Melia, a single word arose above the rest of what was being said. The word was “reward”!

They were talking of Doc’s remuneration, of course — money which Doc would turn over to hospitals and charity as was his custom.