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

sucker out of you?”
    “A woman.”
    “That ain’t so bad. It’s the ordained province of woman to make a sucker out of man. Especially if she’s a pretty woman.”
    “This one was divine!” Gull said feelingly.
    “Eh?”
    “She was glorious!”
    Spook blinked. “Huh?”
    “Darn her!” Gull exploded.
    He told Spook Davis about her, doing very good justice to her physical charms. He added his conviction that the young woman had not been weak from her fall at all; she had pulled a fast one and sent him after the old man to give herself a chance to escape; he did not spare himself for his gullibility in being taken in, in fact he swore at some length about it.
    They drew a bucketful of water—they had to get it from the pump outside—and poured it in varying quantities over the old giant with the result that, if anything, he slept the more soundly. Spook insisted on giving the hard, bare skull of the subject a few experimental raps with the tire tool, but that was no more effective than the water.
    Spook Davis squinted at Gull. “This make any sense to you yet?”
    “Not any.” Gull went over and grimly stood the shotgun against the large, elderly iron safe wherein old man Duzzit, who owned this filling station, kept his cash, then he got a broom and finished sweeping up the shattered oil jars broken in the earlier fight; an operation which had nothing to do with the digging he was giving his memory in an effort to unearth something illuminating.
    “Look!” Spook Davis juggled his tire iron. “I’ve got me an idea.”
    Gull stopped sweeping. “Better let it out of its strange surroundings.”
    “Caustic, eh?” Spook grinned. “Look, you’ve got one relative alive, ain’t you?”
    “Uncle Box Daniels,” Gull admitted.
    “Just the other day, you wrote Uncle Box a letter asking if he knew of anything that looked like a job for us, didn’t you? Now look—maybe that’s why we’re in this mess.”
    Gull went on sweeping. He’d thought of Uncle Box Daniels, but he happened to be a relative he’d never met, as well as his only living relative. He’d heard Uncle Box was a so-called mind-reader, working chautauqua, carnivals and the like. He did not see how that could have any connection with this. Still, he couldn’t see how he had any connection with the thing himself.
    “Customer!” Spook said abruptly.
    A LARGE motor van had driven up beside the gas pump. The vehicle was painted the unprepossessing color of gray Missouri mud, and seemed to be loaded with the large tents of the variety used by carnivals and the more prosperous evangelists, because a few poles were protruding from the rear, and an extra roll of grimy looking canvas was tied to the endgate.
    Gull and Spook Davis swapped looks.
    “Tents!” Spook breathed. “Boy, should I have been a crystal gazer! Your Uncle Box Daniels deals in tents!”
    Gull hurriedly closed the door on the slumbering old giant with the furry ears. Then he stepped outside, accompanied by Spook Davis.
THE SILENT SAINTS
Apostles of the One True Spiritual Way
    It said this on the sides of the truck.
    Three men got out of the cab. They were plain looking men with peaceful expressions, and all three were attired in garments of dark homespun cloth. They wore coarse shirts, buttoned at the neck, but no neckties; their shoes were heavy and plain.
    “We are in need of gasoline, my good brothers,” one of them explained slowly. “And we are also afflicted with a right rear tire which has a slow leak.”
    Spook took the gas hose off its hook and began putting reddish gasoline into the tank, which was situated under the cab seat; Gull walked to the air hose, picked it up and attended to the tire.
    The air hose slipped. Escaping air made a loud spitting noise, as Gull remembered something. These Silent Saints wore heavy garments of rough burlap, and so had the girl who had said her name was Saint Pete.
    One of the plainly dressed Silent Saints was about to enter the