“The thing about it that burns me up is that we didn’t suspect no dirty work. But we had to fire too many men for makin’ costly mistakes. Buttons Zortell was one of those men. And all of a sudden, we woke up to the fact that somebody was tryin’ to break us!”
“For what reason?”
“Blast me if I know! That’s the thing that has us up in the air! We got enemies. Every businessman has. But our enemies are the kind who would walk up an’ take a shot at us instead of sneakin’ around like coyotes!”
“Is there any danger of the dam ruining you financially?”
“Danger?” O’Melia wailed. “It’s almost done it! We’re buildin’ this dam out of our own pocket and it has already cost us twice as much as we figured on. Our treasury is about empty!”
“In case of financial failure, what would happen?”
“We’d have to sell out to the highest bidder. Sell the partially-built dam an’ the ground we’ve bought for the lake, that is. By doin’ that, we could salvage our equipment an’ start over again.”
“Have you received any offers for the uncompleted dam and the lake area?”
O’Melia swore!
“One! It wasn’t half what it cost us. An’ we got it dirt-cheap.”
“I thought the dam had cost you plenty?”
“It has! This Nick Clipton just wanted the land. He said he was a rancher.”
“Nick Clipton?”
“Sure. He’s the jasper who made us the offer.”
“‘Nick Clipton’ is a fake name used by the mastermind who is behind all your trouble!” Doc rapped sharply. “Did you get a look at him when he propositioned you?”
“Naw. The offer came through the mail.”
Doc Savage now gave his attention to the terrain below. There was a crossroads immediately ahead. On only one of the 4 intersection roads was there dust to indicate the recent passage of a vehicle. Doc followed the dust.
“There were some papers or documents involved in the trouble in New York,” he announced. “Can you tell me their nature?”
“Probably the dope Bandy carried,” O’Melia offered. “He had a letter signed by all three of us askin’ for your aid. We also give him maps of the country, plans of the dam, itemized accounts of materials, descriptions of each case of trouble, and so forth. We figured that stuff would be nice for you to study before you got here.”
Ossip Keller — taking little part in the conversation — had been staring at Doc steadily. There was an intensity almost irrational in his scrutiny.
“You see, Mister Savage, we took it for granted you would aid us,” he now offered. “We had heard great things of you and the strange life you lead. Or at least it seems a somewhat strange existence to me — your business of traveling to the far corners of the Earth to help those who need help…”
“… and punishing those who have it coming to them!” Doc was moved to add, thinking of Monk’s attractive secretary in the hands of Buttons Zortell.
Suddenly, he made a sound of disgust and whipped the plane around, heading back the way they had come. It was rarely Doc gave any sign of emotion. But this once he was blasted out of his usual calm.
The vehicle making the dust was not the car they sought but only an empty truck!
The futility of the dust trail might have been an omen for although Doc searched fully 2 hours, he found no trace of Lea Aster or her captors. He came to the conclusion that they had driven into the wooded mountain region and there abandoned their machine in some pine thicket.
He gave up the search. Fuel was running low in the gyro, anyway.
Back over Red Skull canyon, he flew. The great gash looked even more forbidding in the full light of day. O’Melia and Keller were men of strength. Yet they clung to the cockpit seats in stiff-armed anxiety lest their conveyance smash into the sheer walls of stone.
The shelf of the landing field — the frowning precipice which held the cliff dwelling — hove into sight.
Men were clustered about Doc’s speed plane and the 2 smaller ships.
Doc made a mental count, expecting to enumerate only his 5 aides. Then he <blinked>.
The shelf held 6 men!
The newcomer was perhaps 40 years-of-age Doc saw as the gyro dropped in for a landing. The man’s hair stuck up like cactus thorns. He had an enormous jaw, a lipless mouth, glittering eyes — the effect of the whole being hardboiled determination. He was powerfully muscled.
A choking sound from his passengers drew Doc’s attention. O’Melia and Keller were goggle-eyed with incredulity.
“He didn’t die in the plane crash after all!” O’Melia rasped.
“Who?”
The roughly-clad construction man leveled an arm at the big-jawed stranger among Doc’s men.
“That’s Nate Raff!” he boomed.
XIV — The Plot Sinister
Some 2 hours after this incident, nine grim and terse-worded men were arrayed in the large corrugated iron shack which was the dam headquarters office. The nine were Doc Savage, his 5 men, and the 3 owners of the Mountain Desert concern.
Nate Raff was preparing to tell in detail how he came to be alive in spite of indications that he had perished in the plane wreck. He had already imparted snatches. But not the complete story.
Doc had been too busy to question Raff at length. The 2 hours since their meeting had been occupied with organizing a search for Lea Aster and her captors. The necessity for this search accounted for Doc’s presence so soon at the dam.
Fully half the working force at the dam were now scouring the mountains for the blonde young woman.
Raff wedged a stubby pipe in his lipless mouth. As he talked, he kept the pipe between his teeth. This gave his words a snarling quality. He spoke rapidly with a sort of fierce energy.
“O’Melia and Keller have told you about our troubles here at the dam, haven’t they?” he began. “And how we finally decided — because of the frequency with which things went wrong — that somebody was behind our difficulties. We determined to ask you to come down here and look into the mess. We sent Bandy Stevens to New York for that purpose.”
“That much is clear,” Doc agreed.
“Well, Bandy wired us that he had been shot at in Phoenix. And that worried me,” Raff went on. “I started to New York just to make sure somebody got to you. I took a passenger plane from Phoenix. I like to fly.
“There were other travelers in the plane. After we had been in the air about an hour, one of the passengers drew a gun. He was a squatty gent with a flat nose and cauliflower ears. His name was Jud.”
“I met him,” Doc said dryly. “Jud is the one who was clever enough to block my efforts to learn the identity of his boss during my first visit to the cliff dwelling.”
“Jud is pretty smart,” Raff admitted. “Anyhow to get back to the plane, Jud made it land. He forced me to go with him and brought me to that cliff ruin where your men found me.”
“And we darn near didn’t find you!” Monk put in. “You were in an out-of-the-way room. Anyway, you were tied and gagged and Doc’s anesthetic gas had overcome you.”
“The gang fled so quickly they didn’t have time to take me along!” Raff flung through his teeth.
“You did not at any time catch sight of the Chief of the gang or hear anything pointing to his real identity?” questioned the dapperly-clad Ham who was sitting to one side, chin and hands resting on his sword cane — his habitual posture when thinking.
“No!” snapped Raff. “I’ve no idea who he is!”
Doc Savage brought the conversation back to the plane.
“You have not accounted for the plane crash, Mister Raff.”
Raff chewed his pipe violently. “I can’t account for it either. I don’t know what happened.”