Doc Savage - The Derrick Devil Part 17

"Funny how the thing absorbs men right outta their clothes, and don't digest the cloth, too," remarked another. "I guess it only likes living tissue."

"Animal tissue," the first speaker corrected. "Say, I know one of the guys it eat up had a leather belt, and that was eaten!"

Johnny struggled. But they had tied him to the post, and tied him securely.

He could see the horrible jellylike ma.s.s now! It was flowing like a mucid river out of the tank! The thing was huge!

Johnny wondered if he would faint in time to save some of the agony. The h.e.l.l of it was that he never had fainted.

Chapter XVIII. TRICKS.

DOC SAVAGE sat in a chair in a Tulsa hotel and watched the morning sun whiten the rooftops and the buildings about him. There was utter calm in the big bronze man's manner, no hint of the horrors and death that surrounded him.

From where he sat, he could see out across the Arkansas River, see the giant oil refineries of West Tulsa, and since it was a very clear morning, the smoke that marked the location of Sapulpa.

Vida Carlaw sat near by. She was not calm. She held a big revolver, and her face was a pale mask.

"We were lucky to get away when Tant's men were attacked by the fellows in that truck," she said. "But I'm awfully sorry Johnny didn't escape."

Doc savage said nothing in reply.

It had not, after the defeat of the Tant outlaw by their sinister and mysterious foes, been an eventful night.

Doc had attempted to follow the attackers, but had failed, because their cars had outdistanced him.

Doc Savage and Vida Carlaw had returned to Tulsa. Doc had taken the hotel suite. His next move had been to telephone the newspapers, and it looked like a queer move on his part, not only because he never sought newspaper publicity, but because when a flock of reporters had rushed to the hotel, he had merely showed himself, then refused to give out any kind of an interview. But even the news of his presence had made the front page this morning: DOC SAVAGE IN TULSA BELIEVED WORKING ON MONSTER CASE.

The name of the hotel was given.

The newspaper with the story lay open on the floor before Vida Carlaw, where she had flung it in something of a rage.

"That will show every one of our enemies where we are staying!" she snapped.

A knock on the door interrupted any answer Doc Savage might have intended to make.

The girl leaped up, clenching her gun, and gasped, "Don't open it! It may be Tant or some one!"Doc went to the door, empty-handed, and opened it. He had never seen the man who stood outside before, but evidently the fellow had seen Doc, or had had the bronze man described to him, because he grinned wryly and said, "Like to talk to you alone, Savage."

The visitor was a small man of indeterminate age, and did not have any outstanding qualities apparent about him, except that his eyes were small. Neither did he look particularly weak. He was just a man who would escape notice in a crowd, which is sometimes a nice thing to be able to do.

"Only Vida Carlaw is with me," Doc Savage said.

"Tant won't mind her hearing," said the nondescript man. "Tant sent me, see. He saw in the paper where you were at this hotel. That way, he knew how to get hold of you."

"That," Doc said, "is why the news item was given to the papers."

"h.e.l.l it was!" The Tant emissary seemed surprised and a bit frightened.

"I wanted Tant to get in touch with me," Doc told him.

"Yeah? Then you're willin' for me to take you to Tant?"

"Of course."

THE small man had a car waiting in the street, and it was as un.o.btrusive, but as efficient in its way, as he himself.

"You wanta search me for a gun?" he asked before taking his place behind the wheel.

"Not necessary," Doc said.

"I don't believe in taking such chances!" the girl said, sharply.

Doc Savage had long ago learned something of the futility of trying to explain a doubtful point to a young person of the opposite s.e.x, especially a pretty one, so he did not mention that if the man was willing to be searched, he doubtless didn't have a gun on his person.

The man drove as decorously as any ordinary citizen, and fairly expertly. He did not speak, and showed no desire for conversation.

"What does Tomahawk Tant want to talk to us about?" Vida Carlaw asked.

"I can't tell you," their guide said shortly.

"Why not?"

"Because Tant would probably kick me so hard I'd be standing on my hair roots," the man grunted.

After that, they said nothing, until Doc Savage spoke.

"It might be better," he said, "if you stayed behind."

"Not me!" the girl snapped. "I'm going to do all I can to find Reservoir Hill!"

The car headed north, and once in the country, picked up speed. Trucks on the roads and numerous cars were all moving in the direction of the Indian Dome Field, or coming from the field.

Shortly, they began to pa.s.s truck after truck, all exactly alike, all painted army khaki and bulging with militia men.

"Stop," Doc Savage requested the guide. "I want to find out what these soldiers mean."The driver hesitated, then pulled alongside a truck.

"Where you headed for?" Doc called.

"Indian Dome Field," the soldier driving the truck called back. "Governor has ordered all oil wells in the Indian Dome Field plugged with concrete or lead, so these monsters can't keep coming out."

"The oil operators in Indian Dome won't like that."

"They'll have to like it!" the soldier said, grimly. "The governor has declared martial law to stop the wild confusion!"

The Tant outlaw drove on, covered nearly a mile in silent thought, then said over his shoulder, "The governor is playin' into the hands of this other crowd!"

Doc replied nothing.

"The idea of the whole thing is to get the fields shut down so the poorer operators will get hard up and have to sell cheap," the driver added. "Somebody oughta tell the governor that."

"Why doesn't Tant do it?"

"Who'd believe Tant?"

As the car continued its course, their exact destination became evident.

"We're going to the Indian Dome Field!" Vida Carlaw exclaimed.

THE girl's obvious astonishment seemed to tickle the driver, for he chuckled, then offered, "This is one of Tant's best hang-outs!"

"But it's so public!" the girl exclaimed. "And there's thousands of soldiers around! Probably the place is flooded with State police, too!"

The driver laughed again. "Would you know the famous outlaw, Tomahaw Tant, if you saw him face to face?"

The girl considered.

"No."

"Neither would a lot of other people," said the driver.

They drove on some distance, and the scattered derricks of the oil wells in the southern end of Indian Dome Field came into view. The Sands-Carlaw-Hill lease was located near the northern end, in what was considered unproven territory, as far as oil at the deeper levels was concerned.

Vida Carlaw asked, "Will we get to see Tant? I'd rather like to have a look at him."

The driver snorted.

"Tant won't show himself. He'll talk to you from another room, or somehow."

The girl s.h.i.+vered. "You're sure we'll be turned loose?"

"Tant said so," replied the man.

Doc Savage interposed dryly, "If you were an enemy of Tant's, as I might be considered to be, since anyone outside the law is my natural enemy, would you take the bare word, relayed, that you would be turned loose.

In other words, would you do what we're doing?"

"h.e.l.l, no!" the driver said, promptly.Then he pulled his car up before an ordinary galvanized tin pumphouse building. It was an unromantic-looking place.

The building evidently housed one of those central pumping plants for shallow oil wells-the plant inside would consist of an engine, turning a great wheel to which was attached the ends of numerous steel rods, extending away over the top of the earth, running through guides. A rotation of the wheel gave each of these rods a push and a pull, actuating the pumps attached to the other ends.

The contraption was pumping as the car drove up, but some one inside immediately shut it down.

"C'mon in," invited the driver.

Doc and Vida Carlaw got out of the car.

"If anybody had told me I would ever walk into Outlaw Tant's hide-out of my own accord, almost, I'd have said they were crazy!" declared the girl.

She and Doc Savage walked into the pumphouse.

It was a bare, cold-looking place with the smell of crude oil strong.

The girl peered about, then gave a violent shriek and whirled.

"Run!" she screamed. "Somebody's aiming a rifle through that door!"

DOC SAVAGE, flas.h.i.+ng out a bronze hand, stopped her flight.

"You're on edge," he said. "Take another look at it."

The girl peered, and did not seem relieved. She could plainly see the pipe pointing at them from the small hole in the door which led into the room housing the pump.

"It's not a rifle barrel," Doc explained. "It's a piece of gas pipe."

The place where they stood, only partially lighted by the door behind them, was a grotesque-looking spot.

The wheel-it was turned by a belt running into the engine room-was a huge thing. The rods extending from it made a fantastic tangle.

The pipe was there for a man to speak through and disguise his voice.

"This is Tomahawk Tant," said a voice out of the pipe.

Doc did not even try to identify the voice. There was no use trying. Coming through the pipe, it lost all character. It was hardly understandable.

"Oh!" said the girl, and started forward. "I'm going to have a look at that fellow!"

"I'd hate to have to shoot a girl," the Tant voice said.

Vida Carlaw stopped.

Tant said, "This meeting is on the up-and-up. You're out to get me. All right, but I call you here, Savage, because I think we can work together."

If Doc Savage was supposed to make a comment in the pause that followed, he did not.

Tant continued through the pipe, "I ain't askin' anything from you, Savage. You don't even have to declare a truce. You can keep on trying to get me all the time."

Doc said, "Then this is not an effort to bargain?""I never had to bargain with n.o.body!" boomed Tant through the pipe. "If guys want to make a trade, they come to me! No matter how big they are, they come to me!"