The car was located within the quarter-hour.
A phone call came in from a searching party covering one of the mountain roads. The machine had been found in a deep gulch, carefully blanketed with new-cut brush. The smell of gasoline from the abandoned vehicle had led to its discovery. No trace of the men had been found.
“Ham,” Doc directed, “take a fingerprint outfit and fly up to the spot in the gyro. See what you can find on the car in the line of prints.”
Twiddling his sword cane, Ham departed on the mission.
At Doc’s request, a company shack was assigned to his use. In this he set up a portable laboratory which was unloaded from the giant speed plane.
An important item in this laboratory was a device for analyzing complex chemical combinations — liquid and vapor — with only a few minutes’ work. This mechanism was simple utilizing the electrical decomposition of the substance under analysis. But the results it secured were equivalent to hours of painstaking work by hand.
With this device, Doc delved into the nature of the flaskful of air he had trapped within the cliff dwelling. He desired to learn the significance of the weird odor. And he hoped this knowledge would tell him what manner of fantastic thing had caused the cliff ruin passage to fill with molten stone!
His first analysis was far from satisfactory. This was demonstrated by the fact that he immediately made another analysis.
He did not apprise his 5 men — or anyone else — of the final outcome of his work.
Doc next went over a record of the difficulties which had beset the building of the dam. Without exception, they were listed either as “accidents” or due to somebody’s “carelessness”’. Some of the men making costly errors had been discharged. Many were still employed.
Considering the whole roster of troubles, it was evident they had been the working of a systematic plot. Not to prevent building of the dam but to make its construction as costly as possible!
“Somebody is trying to break the concern,” Doc told the 3 owners when they assembled for an early afternoon conference. “And I suspect many of your workmen are still on the payroll of the enemy.”
“Blast ‘em!” Nate Raff snarled. “We’ll fire the whole crew! It’s a fine lot of thanks we’re gettin’! You know, we started this dam in the first place just to keep our men at work when business got slack.”
“Sale of electrical power would have eventually paid for the project,” Doc said shortly.
“After what it’s cost us already, it’ll never get paid for!” Raff groaned. “Golly, Savage! Can’t you get us out of this somehow?”
“I’ll have to be given a free hand,” Doc pointed out. “But that will mean myself and my men taking full charge.”
“That’s what we were hoping you’d do!” Raff said elatedly.
XV — The Thundering Death
Arrangements were quickly made putting Doc Savage and his aides in control of the construction work.
An engineer of impressive repute, Renny Renwick took over the mechanical end — the actual work! He was greeted with sour looks by a number of the under-foremen who resented seeing an outsider in authority.
Within an hour, the grumbling stopped. The complaining ones stared in astonishment.
They realized that here was a man who knew his stuff!
It chanced that an elderly employee on the job had once worked with Renny on a South American bridge job. This man spread hints about Renny’s reputation. Hints which were not hard to believe since within his first hour, the big-fisted engineer had made a half-dozen changes which would save thousands-of-dollars in costs.
In the second hour, Renny had a fight. To keep the concrete cool while it was in process of settling — a necessity because of the heat generated in the setting process — water was circulated through numerous pipes set in the dam body. These pipes became a part of the dam and later would be pumped full of “grout” or thin mortar. But at the present moment, they were carrying water which was chilled in a refrigerating plant.
The plant attendant — a gangling giant almost as big as Renny — let the ammonia compressors overheat. As a result, a bearing froze.
Renny raised a roar that could have been heard a mile! Not an uncommon performance for a construction man.
The attendant took a swing at Renny…
…and awakened in the camp hospital 4 hours later. For the next week, the fellow maintained he had been hit by no human fist. It could have been nothing less than a 16-pound rock hammer! But eyewitness testimony was to the contrary.
Examining the ammonia compressor oil, Renny found it was not oil at all but a compound imitation which had no lubrication qualities whatever. This accounted for the burned bearings.
Renny promptly stopped work. He gathered all the workmen — even having the night force routed out-of-bed.
Then he read the “riot act” to them!
With his huge fists parked like rusty kegs on his hips, he told them what-was-what. That somebody was trying to break the Mountain Desert Company. And she was pending plenty of money to do it!
“I’m not wasting the breath to tell you it’s gonna stop,” he finished. “I’m just blasted well warning you that you’d better not be caught! It won’t be healthy. In fact, it’ll be blame fatal!”
This was taken by the construction men in sober-faced silence. They seemed to realize the full seriousness of the situation. Not a smile appeared. The quiet was like that in a courtroom waiting for a death sentence to be pronounced.
Then somebody in the rear gave Renny a loud “bird”.
Renny stormed into the crowd in search of the jokester but didn’t find him.
As a matter-of-fact, it had been Ham who had happened along in time to hear Renny’s dramatic declaration. He couldn’t resist the opportunity, having acquired bad habits from his perpetual quarrel with Monk.
Ham had just returned from his mission to get the fingerprints off the car stolen from Keller and O’Melia.
“Fingerprints had been wiped off the wheel, door handles, emergency brake, and so forth,” he reported to Doc Savage in the improvised laboratory. “There wasn’t a thing of value.”
“All right,” Doc replied. “I’m going to have a look around.”
He stepped out of the laboratory. Several persons — workmen off-duty or hangers-on about the mushroom town of Skullduggery — stared at him.
Doc had removed the make-up used during the night, restoring the natural bronze color of his skin. This — coupled with his remarkable proportions and notable bearing — was what drew attention.
He was a man who commanded interest!
Of all those who saw Doc striding along the construction camp street, probably no one was more impressed than Buttons Zortell. The scar-cheeked villain drew his eye from the peephole in the wall of his shack hiding place.
“Blazes!” he muttered. “The bronze guy is finally goin’ down to the job. That’ll give the Boss his chance!”
Jud chuckled dryly.
“50 bucks says this is the last time we ever see Doc Savage,” he offered.
Buttons snorted. “You want a sure thing!”
This drew a round of mirth from the other men, some of whom were sprawled on the floor. Others sat in the cellar where it was less smoky and where they could keep an eye on Lea Aster.
A truck rumbled along the street, laden with sacked cement.
Doc hitched a ride on the vehicle. The truck followed a curving, rutty, rather steep road which wound down to the dam scene.
Doc alighted near the workings, leaving the truck to continue on to the great battery of concrete mixers. Danger seemed farthest from his mind as he stood on the site of a spillway and took in the spectacle.