Free Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace by Kenneth Robeson, Lester Dent, Will Murray Page A

roughly, ‘evil spirit.’ ”
    The bronze man’s knowledge of language was so deep it included most Native American tongues still spoken to this day.
    Ham almost doubled over with laughter. “You mean the sight of this homely ape’s ugly face frightened him away!”
    “Maybe he saw my mitts and figgered I could pound him flat into his moccasins,” countered the hairy chemist.
    “What do you make of it, Doc?” wondered Long Tom.
    Before the bronze man could reply, Johnny Littlejohn gave out a bleat of surprise.
    Pointing high with his flash beam, he said, “A phantasmagorical imponderability!”
    All eyes followed his quivering beam.
    The roof tower that so resembled a wizard’s cap of old was no longer there!
    “Vanished!” Long Tom exploded.
    They ran toward the sight.
    This time they were not attacked.
    Reaching the clearing, they came upon the area they had spotted from the air. There was a poured concrete foundation sitting in a cleared space. That was all.
    No sign of any roof or house. Not a stick of wood or siding. The nearby trees were astir, as if shivering at what they alone had witnessed. No breeze troubled them. There was just a shivering and shaking amid the leaves.
    Doc’s eerie trilling came anew—an uncanny accompaniment to the leafy orchestra. But he said nothing.
    Using his pocket torch, which he widened to a ray by twisting the lens, the bronze giant made a reconnoiter of the foundation.
    “Our moccasin-clad friend has been here. His tracks come and go.”
    Renny remarked, “Looks like he’s been visiting this place pretty often. There are tracks over tracks.”
    “Perhaps there is more than one Indian hereabouts,” Ham offered.
    Doc Savage shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “The same man. The detailing and size of the moccasin prints make that clear.”
    They rummaged around for almost an hour but discovered no further clue to what happened to the vanished house. Or, at least, to its roof. For that was all that anyone had seen of the supposed structure.
    Deciding to return to their dirigible, they set off.
    Not half a mile away, Monk Mayfair happened to look back, as if still trying to puzzle out the mystery.
    “Blazes!” he exclaimed.
    All heads turned.
    There, clearly outlined in the spectral moonlight behind them, was the conical roof tower that was so evocative of a wizard’s cap. It looked as solid as a church steeple.
    A wind seemed to have sprung up, for the leaves in the trees began rustling as if full of creeping vipers. Yet they felt no wind on their faces.

Chapter VII
    COLUMBUS AND THE SAINTS
    WHEN THE GREAT GULLIVER walked into the One-Stop-Duzzit filling station carrying the old Goliath with the hairy ears piggy-back, Spook Davis reared to his feet, made an awful face, grabbed his head with both hands and sat down again.
    “Oo-o-o, my head!” he groaned. “Say, what’s that you’ve collected?”
    At that point, the old one with the hirsute ears mumbled in his alcoholic sleep.
    “Sha fact,” he hiccoughed. “Chris Columbus ish alive.”
    Spook Davis yelped, rose out of his chair, cried out again terribly and fell back holding his head with one hand and stabbing the other in the direction of the old giant.
    “That’s who hit me!” he yelled. “I know that voice!”
    Gull said nothing, but carried the old man into the little room that held the air compressor and sat him on the concrete floor, after which he straightened and stretched until his arm and back muscles had relaxed somewhat from the strain of carrying the ancient giant. Then, searching the elderly titan, he collected the four whiskey bottles, but nothing else.
    Spook Davis came shuffling into the compressor room carrying a tire-changing tool.
    “I’m gonna wake that old moose up with this and ask him some questions!” Spook hefted the tire iron grimly. “I’ve been made a sucker out of and it gripes me.”
    Gull said, “You’re not by yourself,” disgustedly.
    “Eh? Who made a