“What d’you want me to tell you?”
Doc reflected silently that almost anything would be of interest.
“His name is supposed to be a big secret, huh?” he asked.
A puzzled squint puckered the eyes of the man before him.
“I don’t quite savvy what you’re drivin’ at. Of course it’s a secret outside the gang. But everybody in the gang knows his name ain’t ‘Nick Clipton’.”
“Hey you!” suddenly roared squat Judwho had first discovered Doc.
The fellow had moved around to the side and surreptitiously drawn a six-gun. He had the weapon leveled at Doc’s head.
“You ain’t one of this scatter at all!” snarled the gunman.
Doc Savage hastily assumed his hard-boiled, domineering character.
“You’re fixin’ to get yourself ventilated, hombre!” he rasped.
Jud’s big single-action revolver jutted forward threateningly.
“I’m wise to you!” he spat. “There was somethin’ phony about you right from ‘taw!”
“Smart boy.”
“You’re durn tootin’ I am! I’ll prove it, too!”
“If you’re on the up-and-up, you can give us the real name of the Boss. What is it?”
Doc would have given a lot to be able to supply the correct answer to that question. Not because he was greatly concerned over his dangerous position. He had stood before killer guns on other occasions. But the main purpose behind his talk with these men had been to learn the name of the mastermind who paid them.
“The only name I know him by is ‘Nick Clipton’,” he growled truthfully.
The men exchanged alarmed glances. Then they all drew guns.
“By golly, I believe you’re right about ‘im!” one told Jud.
“Sure I’m right!”
“You dumb sheepherders!” Doc roared. “I know how we can settle this. Call the Boss on the radio an’ ask him about me.”
The suggestion was not bluff on his part. He wanted them to call. And as they called, he hoped to overhear the name of their leader.
But they saw through his subterfuge.
“Nix!” grinned Jud derisively. “That radio is an old spark-coil set that can be heard all over the joint when it’s goin’. You could hear the Boss’s name. We’ll just tie you up an’ decide what to do later.”
They advanced threateningly with guns ready.
A close observer might have seen Doc’s chest expand as though he were drawing a capacity quantity of air and holding it within his lungs. His hands were above his head. Yet for no apparent reason, the biceps of his right arm tensed and swelled until it stretched the sleeve of his coat.
The foremost man reached out to search him…
Then a weird thing happened. The reaching effort seemed to overcome the man.
He fell limp as a rag flat on his face!
An instant later, the other gunmen toppled over in the same uncanny fashion. They lay where they fell, breathing noisily.
Every man was unconscious!
Doc waited a bit longer than a minute… then released the breath he had been holding. Retaining his breath over that interval was — for Doc Savage — no great effort.
Inside his right coat sleeve over the biceps was a small, secret pocket. This had held several thin-walled glass balls. They contained a quick-spreading anesthetic gas which produced instant unconsciousness yet which became harmless after diffused in the air more than a minute.
Doc had merely broken the balls to release the gas by tensing his tremendous biceps muscle and held his breath until the vapor became impotent. The men would be senseless for some time.
As he stood there drawing in lungfuls of the dry night air, a plane came moaning down into the abyss of Red Skull Canyon. Exhaust sound indicated it was a single-motored ship.
Buttons Zortell was to come in such a craft! Doc flung to the rectangle of an opening. His flakey-gold eyes probed the darkness.
Clouds had momentarily parted above the mighty rent in the Earth, letting down chalky moonlight which whitened the rock spires and canyon rim but left the depths in gloom. Echoes of the plane motor bounced in salvos from the beetling cliffs, making it seem that a thousand aircraft labored in the chasm.
Wingtip lights <blinking> off-and-on in signal betrayed the location of the ship. It was circling in the moonlight, keeping directly above the 4 ground lights.
Doc knew there must be an arrangement to illuminate the field.
With his small flashlight, he made a quick search. An adjoining room of the cliff dwelling — also looking out upon the level terrain below — held the lighting device.
It was an ordinary washtub aimed like a searchlight at the ground and fitted with a friction-igniting flare.
Doc hastily tore off the friction end of the flare and scraped it aflame. The brilliance which resulted was blinding. The details of the landing field were disclosed.
It was his first opportunity for a comprehensive survey and Doc delayed a moment to take in the scene.
The shelf of ground — several acres in area — was even smoother than he expected. Located at the point where a large side canyon joined Red Skull, the shelf was open in 3 directions. At least open enough to enable an expert pilot to make a landing. The fourth side was walled by the cliff.
Doc hurried to the rope ladder and started down. He could not make out details of the plane as yet. It had not come within the flare luminance.
The rope ladder swayed as Doc descended, scraping along the vertical stone. Below was a sheer drop of at least a hundred feet. Above, there was no way of telling how high the abrupt stone lifted.
Doc had covered but a few feet when the ladder gave a sharp, inexplicable jerk! An instant later, it collapsed completely.
It had been cut at the top!
XII — Killer Chasm
Doc had not been unwarned. The first jerk of the ladder had indicated severing of the rope strands on one side.
He reached swiftly for the nearest ledge. This was little more than a roughness, barely offering purchase for Doc’s grasping fingers.
But it sufficed and he was dangling from it at the moment the ladder failed. Overhead, a man swore delightedly!
The voice was a new one to Doc. Evidently this man had come from within the cliff dwelling somewhere. Perhaps he had been suspicious from the first and kept in the background where the gas had not reached him.
Clinging by the grip of one hand, Doc produced a hank of stout silken line from within his clothing. To one end of this was secured a collapsible metal grapple hook.
Doc anchored the grapple… tested it… then slid down the cord, maintaining control over his progress by keeping a turn of the line about his leg. Once he had reached the bottom, a flip of the cord freed the grapple.
A gun crashed overhead! The bullet jarred dust out of the ground near Doc’s feet.
The cliff had a slight bulge. He flattened close to the base, making it necessary for the man above to lean far over to shoot.
The plane was coming in for a landing. Its motor echoes made a bawling like a multitude of lions.
Doc flung a glance at the craft… and got a profound surprise!
This was no green monoplane such as Buttons Zortell had purchased in New York!
It was a yellow ship — a cabin biplane.
A six-gun slug smacked unpleasantly close to Doc and he hastily shifted position. The man above was yelling angrily. Forced to lean far out to see his target, he could not shoot accurately. Moreover, the flare did not cast a lot of light at the cliff base.
Doc selected 2 round rocks slightly smaller than baseballs. Creeping back-and-forth to baffle the gunner above, he waited and watched the plane.
The craft flattened and settled slowly. Dust arose as its wheels touched. It braked to a halt. The propeller came to a jerky standstill.