The Land of Terror ds-2

by Kenneth Robeson

  He topped a huge stone block.

  Directly below him sprawled Bittman. The taxidermist’s body, so thin it was a skeleton and a few hard muscles, lay grotesquely atwist.

  It was motionless!

  * * *

  A SAILING spring put Doc beside Bittman. His mighty bronze hands started to explore.

  Spang!

  Another shot!

  The bullet would have slain Doc — if he had been one iota less quick on co-ordinating eye and muscles. For he had seen a rifle barrel stir out of the jungle foliage. He had flattened his giant form.

  The rifle slug slicked through the space his body had vacated. It hit a rock and climbed away with a loud squawk.

  Doc’s own gun rapped. Once! Twice!

  A man came tumbling, slowly, stiffly, out of the foliage. He was a short, broad man. He had the look of a human frog. Doc had never seen him before.

  The man piled into a dead heap. One bullet had drilled his forehead. The other had stopped his heart.

  Several seconds, Doc waited. No more shots came. He used his sensitive ears to their fullest. His bronze nostrils twitched, sampling the warm, moist air that should bring him any alien odors.

  He decided no more bushwhackers were about.

  Oliver Wording Bittman stirred. A low, whimpering sound trailed from his lips. His head lifted.

  Suddenly he seized Doc’s leg. He gave a terrific wrench. Doc, taken by surprise, came lightly to a knee. His brawny hands trapped Bittman’s arms.

  "Oh!" Bittman choked. "Oh!"

  He relaxed. Remorse came into his thin face.

  "I — I saw a gun pointing at me!" Bittman moaned. "I realized it was Kar. I — I guess I must have — fainted. When I revived, my first thought was to fight for my liberty. I thought you were Kar’s man. I’m sorry. My head wasn’t clear — "

  Doc nodded thoughtfully. "Fainting was the most fortunate thing you could have done in that case. It dropped you out of sight of the bushwhacker."

  Striding over, Doc inspected the dead gunman.

  Renny, Ham, Johnny, Long Tom and Monk came up.

  "Ever see this man before?" Doc indicated the corpse.

  None of them had.

  "Come on!" Doc directed. "Let’s investigate that fire!"

  They made all speed possible across the waste of stone. They were not shot at. The wall of jungle again took them in.

  The mysterious fire was close. To their nostrils came the tang of its smoke.

  "Quiet!" Doc warned.

  Fifty yards more were traversed at a snail’s pace. But it is difficult for seven men to move through an incredibly dense tangle of plant growth without noise. Especially when one has no particular woodcraft, such as Oliver Wording Bittman.

  "Wait here!" commanded Doc.

  Then he was gone like a bronze shadow. The jungle tissue seemed to absorb him. There was no sound.

  In a moment, Doc’s golden eyes were inspecting the clearing wherein smoked the fire.

  * * *

  NO one was there. The fire had about burned out. It had been lighted for cooking purposes, between two immense logs. The logs alone now burned.

  Near by lay mining paraphernalia — picks, shovels, an empty dynamite box and some stray, clipped ends of fuse.

  A long minute, Doc appraised the scene. Then he strode boldly into the clearing — his keen senses had shown him no bushwhackers lurked near by.

  He circled the open space, then criss-crossed it several times. He moved swiftly. And when he had finished, his retentive mind had a picture of what had gone on in the little glade.

  Kar’s men had camped here. They had been mining somewhere in the waste of strange rock.

  They had been mining the unknown element or substance which was the basis of the Smoke of Eternity!

  What had caused their departure was difficult to say. Either they had secured what they sought, or had been frightened away by the knowledge Doc and his men were near.

  Doc called his men. They hurried up.

  "At least six men are in the gang — probably five, now that we got one." Doc indicated a half dozen tracks — only his dexterous eye could determine they were marks of as many distinct men. "Of the four men Kar sent out of the United States on the Sea Star, we did for one at the coral atoll, as he tried to bomb our plane. To the surviving three, he has added from the crew of the speedy yacht which took his men off the Sea Star, or from some other source."

  "But where did they go?" muttered Oliver Wording Bittman. The taxidermist, although his fingers were still too shaky to play with the scalpel on his watch chain, had recovered amazingly.

  "We’ll trail them," Doc declared.

  It taxed Doc’s woodcraft hardly at all to find the trail. Broad and plain, smaller ferns and shrubs trampled down, it led off around the crater. A half mile, they had simple going.

  Then the way came to an abrupt end!

  It terminated at one of the many shallow, wide streams of hot water. As earlier in the day, Doc employed stilts to cross this obstacle.

  But he could find no trail on the other side!

  "They used a raft or a boat of some sort!" he called to his men.

  "We’ll take one side and you the other until we find where they landed!" Ham offered.

  But this soon proved unfeasible. The slough of hot water quickly became a great swamp. Although this water was far from boiling in temperature, it was still too hot to wade. And some of the channels were too deep for their stilts and too wide to jump.

  "We’ll have to give it up!" Doc said regretfully.

  Time had been passing swiftly. It was nearing dark again, and Doc made preparations looking to a safe night.

  "We’ll take a lesson from the fact that the top of a tree near us was browsed off last night," he decided. "Each man will seek refuge up a separate tree. That way, if one meets with an accident, it won’t spell doom for the others."

  The outburst of an awful fight between a pair of reptilian monsters less than a mile away lent speed to their search for a satisfactory location. The prehistoric giants were beginning their nocturnal bedlam.

  The adventurers found a grove of the palmlike ferns which made an ideal set of perches. Up these, they hurriedly clambered.

  Once more, night poured like something solid and intensely black into the crater of weird Thunder Island.

  * * *

  A FEW words were exchanged in the sepia void. Then conversation lagged. They knew the slightest sound was liable to draw the unwelcome attention of some reptilian titan.

  Ham had selected a bower near Monk.

  "So I can throw a club at Monk if he starts snoring," Ham chuckled.

  Within half an hour after darkness fell, the awful bedlam of the dinosaurs had reached its grisly zenith. The cries of the things were indescribable. Often there came the revolting odor of great meat eaters prowling near by.

  Suddenly Doc discovered a glowing cigarette end in a fern top near the thick jungle.

  "Watch it!" he called. "The light might show Kar our position!"

  "I’m sorry!" called Oliver Wording Bittman’s voice. A moment later, the cigarette gyrated downward, to burst in a shower of sparks.

  Doc and his men were tired — they had not slept a wink the night previous. Although the satanic noises within the crater were as fearsome as on the night before, they were becoming accustomed to them. Noises that made their ears ring and icicles roll down their spines now worried them no more than passing elevated railway trains bother a dweller in the Bronx.

  But Doc had developed a sort of animal trait of sleeping with one eye open. He heard a faint noise. He thought he saw a light some distance away.

  Later, he was sure he detected a distinct, dragging noise very close!

  The sound stopped. Nothing immediate came of it. Doc dropped off to sleep. Too many monsters were prowling about continually to be bothered with one noise.

  A loud shuffling beneath their trees aroused him again. He listened.


  There seemed to be scores of great beasts below!

  "Hey!" yelled Monk an instant later. "Some darn thing is eatin’ on the bottom of my tree!"

  To Doc’s keen ears came the sound of grinding teeth at work on the base of Monk’s fern. Then big incisors began on his own tree!

  Capable bronze hands working swiftly, Doc picked off a fragment of his own shirt. He put a flame to it, got it blazing, and dropped it. The burning fragment slithered from side to side as it fell. It left a trail of sparks. But it gave light enough to disclose an alarming scene.

  A colony of monster, prehistoric beavers had attacked them!

  The creatures were about the size of bears. They had the flat, black, hairless tails of an ordinary beaver. But the teeth they possessed were immensely larger, even in proportion.

  A determined fierceness characterized the beasts. Although they made no snarlings or squealings, the very rapidity of their angry breathing showed they were bent on accomplishing something.

  And that was the destruction of Doc and his men!

  * * *

  DOC SAVAGE’S gaze moved quickly to one side. He had remembered the dragging noise heard earlier. He sought the spot where it had ended. A powerful suspicion was gripping him.

  He was right!

  One of the great prehistoric beavers lay dead! The rear legs were tied together — tied with a rope!

  "

  Kar is responsible for this!" he clipped at the others.

  "How could — "

  "He has visited this crater before. He knows how the weird animals here react. He knew it was a trait with these big beavers to avenge the death of one of their number. So he had his men kill one and drag it here. The animals followed the trail. They can scent us up the trees. They think we’re the killers."

  At this point, the fragment of Doc’s shirt burned out.

  To his ears came a gru-u-ump, gru-u-mpchorus. Lusty teeth working upon their tree retreats! And from the sound, they wouldn’t take long to bring down the giant ferns! They seemed to bite in like axes.

  "Thank Heaven!" came Oliver Wording Bittman’s sudden gasp. "My tree is close enough to other growth that I can crawl to safety! Is there anything I can do to help you men? Perhaps I can decoy them away?"

  "Not a chance!" Monk snorted. "There must be a hundred of them! And they’re chewing so fast they couldn’t hear anything! Say! My tree is already beginning to sway!"

  Doc Savage drew his gun.

  He fired it downward. A single report! It sounded terrific.

  An astounding thing promptly happened!

  The entire colony of prehistoric beavers quit gnawing. They stampeded! Away through the jungle they went at top speed! Not an animal remained behind!

  "Bless me!" Monk chuckled. "What kinda magic you got in that smoke-pole, Doc?"

  Doc Savage was actually as surprised as the others. Then the explanation came to him. How simple!

  "What is the method the beaver uses to warn its fellows of danger?" he asked.

  "It hauls off and gives the water a crack with its tail," Monk replied.

  "That explains it," declared Doc. "These giant prehistoric beavers use the same danger warning, evidently. They mistook the sound of the shot for an alarm given by one of their number."

  Monk burst into loud laughter.

  * * *

  Chapter 20. THE DEATH SCENE

  THE remainder of the night was uneventful — if noisy.

  With daylight, and the simultaneous retiring of the more ferocious of the colossal reptiles, Doc and his men slid down their tree ferns to see what damage the overgrown beavers had done.

  Doc’s shot had not been fired any too soon. Monk’s tree was supported by a piece no thicker than his wrist. And some of the others were as near falling.

  One noteworthy incident enlivened their investigations.

  "It’s gone!" Oliver Wording Bittman’s shriek crashed out.

  The skeleton-thin taxidermist was clutching madly at his watch chain.

  "My skinning scalpel!" he wailed. "It has disappeared! I had it when I retired, I am certain!"

  Doc helped Bittman look for the scalpel under the tree. They didn’t find it. Bittman seemed distraught.

  "It can be replaced for a few dollars," Doc suggested.

  "No! No!" Bittman muttered. "It was a keepsake. A souvenir! I would not have taken five hundred dollars for it!"

  Unable to locate Bittman’s vanished trinket, the adventurers set out in search of breakfast. They cannily kept close to the giant tree ferns which offered the best safety available to man here in the ghastly lost domain of time.

  Doc Savage it was who bagged their breakfast. A large ground sloth flushed up in their path. A bronze flash, Doc’s mighty form overhauled it. A rap of his mighty fist stunned the creature. It resembled a cross between a tailless opossum and a small bear, and looked inviting enough.

  "It feeds on herbs and such fruit as there is," Doc decided. "It shouldn’t be bad eating!"

  It wasn’t. But before eating, while the sloth was cooking over a fire near a steaming brook, Doc took his exercises. He never neglected these. The previous morning he had taken them in the tree, although he had not slept a wink during the night.

  The kit containing the vials of differing scents and the mechanism which made the high and low frequency sound waves had reposed in his pocket throughout. It was, other than their arms, practically the only piece of their equipment they had saved.

  After breakfast, Doc made an announcement.

  "I’m leaving you fellows. Stick together while I’m gone. I mean that! Don’t one of you get out of sight of all the others! The danger always afoot in this place is incalculable!"

  "Where you going, Doc?" Ham queried.

  But Doc only made a thin bronze smile. A swift motion — and he was gone! The earth might have swallowed him.

  Doc’s friends would have been awe-stricken had they seen the pace with which he traveled now. His going was like the wind. For there was no need to accommodate his steps to the limited speed of his less acrobatic companions. He seemed but to touch the rankest wall of jungle — and he was through. Often he took to the top of the growth, leaping from bush to creeper to bush, maintaining balance like an expert tightrope walker.

  Near the slain prehistoric beaver which had been dragged to their nocturnal refuge by Kar’s men, Doc picked up a trail. Kar’s men had numbered two!

  Doc’s speed increased. He swept along the trail like a bronze cloud pushed by a swift, if a bit sporadic, breeze. A mile dropped behind him, then another.

  His golden eyes missed little of the amazing prehistoric life about him.

  One incident intrigued him particularly.

  He glimpsed a very black, sleek animal. It had white stripes and spots traveling the length of its body. In size, it approximated an African lion. But it was vastly different in build, being chunky and sleepy looking.

  The unusual animal had a black, bushy tail nearly four times the length of its body! This tail waved above the matted tropical growth like a banner — a flag of warning.

  And flag of warning it was! Doc realized the creature must be ancestor to the common and obnoxious American polecat!

  As he watched the animal, one of the stupendous killers, a tyrannosaurus, came bounding along, its stringlike front legs occasionally batted sizable trees out of its path. The reptilian monster stopped often, balancing on its enormous three-toed feet, and turning slowly around after the manner of a dog standing on his rear legs. The carnivorous giant must have failed to satisfy its appetite during the night, and was still hunting.

  Doc, concealed behind a clump of ferns, kept perfectly motionless. In doing this, he was obeying the first rule of the wild — the same rule that causes a chicken to freeze into immobility when it is sighted away from shelter by a hawk. Common safety commanded that he let the hideous reptilian giant quit the vicinity before he continued on the trail of Kar’s men. And motionless objects escape notice best.r />
  Doc was surprised to see the great prehistoric killer, as large as many a house, flee from the black-and-white edition of a skunk’s ancestor. It was a lesson in the effectiveness of the latter’s gas-attack defense. It was not unlikely that the little animal was the only thing on earth the odious reptile behemoth feared.

  The trail of Kar’s men worked toward the center of the crater. Several times it was evident they had sought to hide their tracks by wading in the edge of such water pools as were not too hot. But Doc held the scent.

  * * *

  DOC halted to cut a long, bamboolike shoot, not unlike the ordinary cane fishing pole. He stripped off the leaves. He worked on the larger end for some minutes. After that, he tested the heft of the javelin he had fashioned.

  For the next few minutes, his alert gaze not only kept track of the trail he was following, but roved in search of something to test his spear on.

  He found game in the shape of a small but vile-looking creature which had a back covered with hairs that were stiff and pointed like thorns. No doubt this was the predecessor of the common porcupine.

  Doc cast his javelin accurately. He inflicted a minor wound on the beast’s flank. It ran off briskly — and suddenly fell dead.

  As the animal tumbled lifeless — the trilling sound abruptly came to Doc’s lips. Low and mellow, inspiring, but now awesome, it was such a sound that probably had never before been heard in this lost crater — this land of terror. The sound seemed to creep away and lose itself in the weird, luxuriant jungle, and silence came.

  It was as though some profound fact had become certainty in Doc’s mind.

  The bronze master hurried on, following the tracks of his quarry. They had not been able to do an effective job of hiding them, due to the intense darkness of the night and the fear of the prehistoric reptilian giants which must have been gripping their hearts.

  Although the larger reptiles had attracted most of the attention, there was by no means a dearth of smaller creatures. Doc saw many armor-backed beasts resembling armadillos. Some of these were no larger than rats. Others reached sizable proportions.