Doc Savage - Mystery On Happy Bones Part 13

said Johnny, "is the gas."

"You about out, too?"

"No, but we can't fly around forever on what we've got."

Over the radio from the other plane, Renny made rumbling noises that meant discontent. "What do you suggest?"

"I have an idea."

"What is it?" Renny demanded. "And look here, use big words. You only use little words on us fellows when you are plenty worried. Little words from you make me uneasy."

The two planes were flying abreast, about a mile apart, alt.i.tude thirteen thousand feet. They had gone up to thirteen thousand as a gag, a gesture that might, they said they hoped, result in some word from Doc.

There had been none. In all directions the eye could detect nothing but the unnatural blue water of the Caribbean, unreal with the brightness of tropical sunlight. They were feeling silly about the thirteen gag.

Johnny glanced at Stony Smith.

"You think it would be all right," he asked, "to drop in at your island?"

"I sooth, it is pleasant board and bounty I offer you," Stony Smith said, in his best Shakespearian manner. "A genteel tarrying place, regardless of what that vixen Hannah told you."Johnny consulted the fuel gauges again.

"I'll be superamalgamated!" he said. "We've got to land somewhere."

The microphone had been alive, and Renny Renwick had overheard the conversation. Renny asked, "Is Stony Smith suggesting we go to Happy Bones Island?"

"That's right," Johnny said. "He says there is a good house and pleasant food there, and we might as well wait in some degree of comfort until we hear from Doc."

"Holy cow!"

Renny boomed. "What's wrong with that?"

"Well, nothing that I see. I was just going to put it up to you."

Renny rumbled at Monk and Ham, and Ham's response that, "Anything to stop you thundering around like this!" was audible.

"O. K. The two nitwits say that it's all right with them if we land on Happy Bones."

THEY picked up Happy Bones Island about an hour later. A few clouds were now in the sky, and the brilliant sun made the shadows of these dark upon the sea, so that it was hard to distinguish the cloud shadows from an island in the distance.

Monk looked it over.

"Nice, warty place," was his opinion. "Great spot to practice leaping from crag to crag."

"Depend on you to spot anything that looks like home," Ham told him.

"Meaning I'm part goat?"

"Who said anything about just 'part'?" Ham asked.

They had a good loud quarrel over that, and their spirits were improved the way a resounding fuss always helped them.

Happy Bones Island had a harbor which was obviously small but excellent. There was a reef barrier a mile offsh.o.r.e on that side, a reef that was almost half a mile wide, a forest of coral spires, none of which showed more than a few inches above the water. Inside this, the sea was calm.

Johnny informed them over the radio, "Stony Smith tells me that the harbor is called Sad Bone."

Sad Bone Harbor was a cup, small and perfect, blue with good deep water. The beach was an inviting crescent of white sand.

Beyond the beach was the house, or a group of several houses. They were low and of stone, white, solid and thick-looking. A little Moorish in style, and obviously built there for the centuries. The rooftops were colored brightly, reds and greens and tans.

"Behold," said Stony Smith. "A paradise, did I not tell you?"

"Looks all right," Johnny admitted. "Where do you suppose those seaplanes went? What do you imaginehappened to Major Lowell?"

"They would not come here," said Stony Smith with certainty.

Johnny landed first, although there was nothing that particularly required attention, nothing dangerous.

The plane made perfect contact with the water, and Johnny then sailed it into the sand beach. Because he had been doing the navigating, he had looked over a nautical almanac and a tide table, and knew there was not much tide here, so little danger of stranding the planes high on the beach. He got out, however, and tossed overside a small anchor as a bit of precaution in case the plane should drift.

Monk and Ham and Renny arrived in the other plane. They beached the s.h.i.+p.

"Hey," Monk called. "Hey, Johnny. Did you notice, over on the other side of the island, in the air, what looked like a trace of smoke?"

"Never noticed it," Johnny admitted.

They walked toward the house, Stony Smith saying proudly, "Come on and see it, friends. Forsooth, you will find a feast for your eyes. You will like it."

The breeze shook the fronds of palms and gulls traveled lazily through the air, going about whatever business gulls have as if it was not very important.

"The smoke," said Monk, "was kind of thin. I'm not sure it was smoke. It is hard to tell when you are flying a plane."

"Maybe it wasn't smoke?"

"Maybe not," Monk admitted. "If it was, it came from something that had burned an hour ago, probably.

The smoke cloud had blown out to sea. But, as you say, it maybe wasn't smoke."

Stony Smith waved at the house. "Fitted for a kingly abode, eh?" he said.

"Not bad," Monk admitted.

Then his eyes popped.

"No," he said. "No, I was wrong."

IT was a good job of camouflaging someone had done on four tripod-type machine guns. The tripod guns were a large variety of weapon which a modern, mechanized force would have rated as obsolete, but that did not mean they could not kill a man, or a hundred men. The only reason they were obsolete was because they just put out four or five hundred bullets a minute, and the belt feed was not standard.

The camouflaging had been done expertly with bushes and flowers. These were pushed aside, and there were the guns.

The men with rifles, of which there were several, came out of the house and from behind things and two of them materialized in the tops of palm trees.

There were no words for a few seconds.

"Watch it, fellows," Renny rumbled. "They've got us in the barrel."They stood perfectly still, lifting arms. There was no alternative. Any offensive move would be suicide.

Stony Smith glared at the machine gunners, his neck and face slowly getting red.

"Who are you cads?" he yelled suddenly.

One of the gunners laughed. "Cads," he said. "What's a cad'?" he asked one of his companions.

"It must be one of them new government departments," another told him.

A new howl came from Stony Smith.

He was staring at a compound, a wire pen, in a thicket of palm trees behind the house. The pen obviously had been a stock pen of some kind, but lately it had been strengthened and heightened by the addition of more woven wire. This pen was about a hundred feet long and half as wide.

Around the pen, mounted on insulators, there was bare wire that was obviously electrified.

In the pen were several small sheds, formerly stock sheds.

In the pen also were black men, women and children. They looked forlorn and unhappy. They stared at the newcomers, did not say a word.

Stony Smith howled again. He pointed at the pen filled with native prisoners.

"My people!" he screamed. "My natives! My subjects! They've got them prisoners!"

Chapter XII. THE PARROT'S NEST.

DOC SAVAGE and Hannah listened to Stony Smith howl. They could understand his words. And Hannah turned to Doc with an expression that was dumfounded.

"I don't get it," she said. "I thought he was behind it all."

Doc Savage said nothing. He was breathing heavily. As a matter of fact, he was winded, and very discouraged.

They had been unfortunate. They had failed to reach this spot in time to warn Monk and Ham and Renny and Johnny against landing. The men were ash.o.r.e, in fact, by the time they had come in sight of the beach.

Hannah said, "Stony Smith didn't know those men were here."

Doc made no reply. He studied the surroundings, using his ears and eyes.

He knew that they had been careless getting here. They had raced madly through the jungle in hopes of preventing the planes landing. If there were guards in the jungle, they doubtless would have been heard.

They had been heard, too.

"Quiet," Doc whispered. "I think we are being surrounded."

He strained his ears. He got a small, hardwood peg and jammed it in the ground and listened against that, Indian fas.h.i.+on."Two parties," he breathed. "One behind us. The other in front and a little to the right. They have us located, I believe."

"How many?"

"Eight or ten, altogether."

"We can lick that many," Hannah said. She sounded as if she would not consider such a feat extraordinary.

Doc examined the jungle growth overhead. It was quite thick, interlacing. Unusually thick growth for an island, although not extraordinary for the mainland. He moved cautiously to a tree.

"Climb," he said.

Hannah examined the tree, then frowned at him. She did not think much of the climbing idea. "They'll have us treed," she said. "That will make it simple for them."

"Not too simple," Doc said. "Climb."

"I'd better take off my shoes," she said.

Her feet were well-shaped, firm and tanned. And she could climb silently. Doc went up behind her, watching for the enemy in the jungle. They were somewhere close, he was sure. But the growth was very thick, and he had not yet glimpsed them.

"Higher," he whispered to Hannah, when she stopped climbing.

She went on, but halted again when they were up about fifty feet.

"Look, I'm no monkey," she said. "If you want to know the truth, I'm scared. If I have to break my neck, I'd sooner not do it in a fall."

Doc listened for a while. And finally he located one group of the prowlers. They were crawling through the jungle, five men with c.o.c.ked rifles.

"Put your arms," Doc told Hannah, "around my neck."

She examined him with interest.

"I'll admit I have given such an idea previous thought," she said. "But do you think this is the time and place for it?"

Doc colored uncomfortably.

"Hang on, I mean," he said. "Cling to my back. I'll show you how."

"Then," said Hannah, "this isn't romance?"

"Get on my back," Doc said impatiently.