Doc now revived O’Melia.
Able to sit up, O’Melia took his head in both hands and groaned. “How’d I get here?”
Doc Savage told him.
O’Melia listened while breathing heavily from the pain in his bruised head. He glowered at Jud as he heard how the man had plotted to murder him.
Suddenly O’Melia sprang to the spot where Jud’s six-guns had dropped! He clutched a weapon and aimed it at Jud.
“I’ll fix you for tryin’ to kill me!” he bellowed and pulled the trigger.
The gun spoke a clap of a roar! But the bullet only made a shiny smear on a nearby rock.
A small stone — flung with unerring accuracy by Doc’s hand — not only caused the slug to go wide but also knocked the revolver spinning.
O’Melia clutched his stinging fingers and roared in a wild Rage!
“Nobody is gonna try to croak me an’ get away with it!” he yelled.
Jud now came to life. He was still unable to move his arms and legs. But there was nothing wrong with his voice.
“Keep ‘im off me!” he screamed at Doc Savage. “He’s tryin’ to kill me to shut my mouth! He’s afraid I’ll tell!”
“Tell what?” Doc demanded.
Jud bent a snarling glare on O’Melia who returned it with utter hate. The vicious exchange of looks seemed to decide Jud.
“O’Melia is my Boss!” he barked. “O’Melia is the brains back of all this killin’ an’ construction trouble!”
O’Melia had all the signs of being stunned by this declaration. Jud went on, his coarse voice lifting to a yell.
“I been gettin’ worried!” he bawled. “O’Melia has got stuff on me that’d send me to the Pen for life! I was afraid the buzzard would use it. That’s why I was gettin’ rid of ‘im!”
O’Melia now hurtled for the six-gun which had been knocked from his hand. His face was turgid with RAGE!
But again, Doc flung a rock. This one took O’Melia on the head instead of the hand. The man slumped down amid a rattle of gravel.
“He’s my boss!” Jud whined.
Doc said nothing. His fingers sped over Jud’s bulky form…
…and Jud suddenly discovered use of his limbs had returned.
Carrying O’Melia and herding Jud before him, Doc returned to the construction settlement.
O’Melia’s private quarters proved to be his destination. A rather substantial bungalow-style shack housed these.
There was a bedroom, roughly furnished. The other chamber — a living room — was more elaborately fitted. Indian tomahawks, javelins, knives, Navajo blankets, and wampum belts decorated the walls. Skin rugs of bear, bobcat, and mountain lion were on the floor.
Doc seized Jud… rendered him helpless with nerve pressure… then made a circuit of the bungalow. He was outside several minutes.
Immediately he was back indoors and returned Jud the use of his limbs. This was an act of kindness since under the nerve pressure, the limbs were filled with that unpleasant sensation of being “asleep”.
A dipperful of water revived O’Melia. A denial of Jud’s charge promptly leaped from O’Melia’s lips!
“A pack of lies!” he rasped. “The skunk is tryin’ to cover his boss while at the same time curryin’ your favor by makin’ you think he’s talkin’ freely!”
“Ain’t neither!” Jud yelled. “I’m tellin the truth an’ you know it!”
“You,” Doc told Jud dryly, “wouldn’t know the truth if you met it in the road.”
“Meanin’ you don’t believe me?” Jud wailed.
“Exactly. O’Melia stated your motives. You’re trying to cover the identity of your Leader.”
O’Melia gaped incredulously as if he couldn’t believe the good news. An expression of great sheepishness came upon his features. He sat down weakly in a chair and swabbed his tongue over dry lips.
“Reckon I’ve made a loco-ed goat outa myself,” he mumbled. “I’ve got a plumb cultus temper and sometimes she gets away from me. Givin’ this coyote a killin’ was all I could think of after he sprang his pack of lies!”
Doc Savage replied nothing. He seemed to be concentrating on the use of one of his faculties. Perhaps his hearing!
Jud whipped to his feet. He had decided to try a break!
Head-first, he pitched at a window. Glass jangled and wooden cross-pieces of the sash splintered! Jud vanished into the outer night.
There was a floundering and crashing outside the window. Then feet ran rapidly away.
Doc Savage appeared like a bronze-hued gush of smoke in the doorway. He saw the running figure — a man, doubled low, features obscured by snapped-down hat and the darkness.
The runner whirled and lifted a gun. The weapon spat flame and a stutter of powder noise. Snapping bullets drove Doc to shelter.
“Hey!” O’Melia wailed. “Where’d Jud get a gun so quick?”
Doc clipped: “Look out of the window Jud jumped through,”
Puzzled, O’Melia complied.
Jud lay on the hard earth under the opening. A long knife had been inserted expertly into his heart!
XX — The Fiery Trail
The truth did not dawn upon O’Melia for some seconds.
“The guy runnin’ away isn’t Jud!” he gulped. “Who is he?”
Instead of answering, Doc Savage exposed himself at the door for a flash moment.
A salvo of bullets arrived almost as he whipped back out of view!
They tore wood off the doorjamb. One smashed the stone head of a tomahawk on the wall. Another caused 2 spears to fall clattering to the floor.
The gunman plunged through a mesquite clump and could be seen beyond it, dodging around ramshackle buildings until his figure was lost in the moonlight.
“Who was it?” O’Melia repeated.
“My guess is that it was Jud’s Boss — the devil behind this mess,” Doc replied.
“But why’d he scrag Jud?”
“2 reasons, probably. First, he was afraid Jud could be made to talk. But the fact that he slew Jud instead of helping him to escape indicates he wanted his hireling out of the way. Jud had dangerous knowledge. And he was clever enough to use it to his own gain in the future.”
O’Melia studied Doc curiously. He was remembering Doc’s air of concentration a moment before Jud made his ill-fated break. Doc had been listening to something…
“You knew some one was prowlin’ outside, didn’t you?” O’Melia queried of Doc.
“Oh yes,” Doc assured him calmly. “The fellow sought to enter the bedroom window but failed. Then he came around the house. My intention was to let him reach the window of this room where he could have been seized. But Jud’s act spoiled my plan.”
O’Melia’s expression was amazed! The Bronze Man’s powers were uncanny, he reflected. O’Melia had heard nothing to indicate a skulker. Yet Doc had heard a great deal!
“Aren’t you gonna follow the killer?”
“In good time,” Doc replied. “It is best to let the man think he is not trailed. In that case, he might lead us to Miss Aster.”
O’Melia thought of something.
“Where are your 5 friends?”
“Buttons Zortell was with Jud when the charge of TNT was exploded alongside our quarters,” Doc explained. “My gang is trailing Buttons, hoping he’ll give them a line on Lea Aster’s whereabouts.”
O’Melia laughed… then winced as his head throbbed. He felt a greater confidence in this bronze giant than at any previous time. Until now, he had harbored a vague fear that Doc was not clever enough to cope with the fiend behind all the Mountain Desert’s troubles.
But O’Melia’s doubts had suddenly vanished. Whoever the unknown Mastermind might be, he had met his match in Doc Savage!
Doc now hurried to his laboratory, transferred from the blown-up shack. He worked over the ultraviolet-light lantern, converting it to battery operation so that it could be transported easily.