Long Tom grimaced, felt of the gap in his teeth. "I didn't think the stuff was poisonous. You know it didn't kill us on the train."

  "That was because you didn't get enough of it," Doc replied. "I thought at first that the attack on the train was made merely to frighten us. Since then, I've learned more of the nature of these fellows. They would as soon kill us as try to scare us."

  "Just why such a small quantity of gas was injected into our train compartment is hard to explain. Perhaps the fellow administering the gas was frightened away. The stuff must have been sent into the compartment through the crack at the bottom of the door."

  Doc ended his long speech abruptly, and cupped a palm back of an ear. He stood thus for several seconds, perfectly rigid.

  "There's a boat coming!" he said. "It sounds like an outboard engine."

  A minute passed--two, three. The others began to wonder if Doc could have been mistaken. Then they heard the sound of the boat.

  "Probably the kidnapers coming back to make a deal!" Renny boomed.

  "The boat is coming straight in from the open sea," Doc decided.

  The boat nosed in past the floating mail box. It became distinguishable in the moonlight. It was simply a square-sterned canoe, fitted with an outboard motor.

  "Ahoy, Senors!" called a hoarse voice.

  "I've got a notion to take a shot at him!" Renny rumbled. "Bet I can hit him!"

  "And then they'd bump Ham, Patricia, and the squaw!" Monk grunted. "Don't be a dope!"

  Monk was very earnest. Although Monk and Ham seemed continually on the point of flying at each other's throats, and insulted each other with vigor and delight, either would have risked his life for the other. On occasion, each had done so.

  "What do you want?" Doc called to the distant men.

  "The ivory block, Senor Savage!" the fellow shouted back.

  "We haven't got the block!" Doc told him.

  "You cannot deceive us, hombre!" the reply came volleying back. "The Senorita Savage had it. She admitted that fact when she was our prisoner earlier."

  "She thought she had it," Doc corrected him. "When she looked in the hiding place, the block was gone."

  "We are not interested in hearing a smooth story, Senor Savage," said the distant man. "I came to inform you of a fact."

  "What fact?"

  "Simply, senor, that we now have your six friends in a very safe place."

  Several seconds of surprised silence followed these words.

  "Six!" Renny's big voice rumbled.

  "Ham, Patricia, and the squaw--that's only three!" muttered Johnny. He took off his glasses with the magnifying lens, lingered them thoughtfully.

  "Did you say six?" Doc called to the boatman.

  "Si, si," the fellow shouted back.

  "He can only mean one thing," Long Tom said slowly. "1 told you that the Ovejas and El Rabanos started shooting at me right after they escaped."

  "You were evidently mistaken," Doc told him.

  "Sure I was!" Long Tom agreed. "It was this other gang shooting at me. They must have grabbed Senor and Senorita Oveja and El Rabanos."

  Renny banged his big fists together. "It beats me!"

  "Me, too," Monk agreed. Bewilderment was on his homely face. "I figured Senor Oveja, his daughter, and El Rabanos were in with the other gang. The ambush they fixed for Doc made me think that."

  "I figured the same way," said Johnny. "There must have been a contact between the two parties. Otherwise, how did they know of the meeting with Doc?"

  "The girl and the two men might have set a snare to capture me," Doc pointed out. "The other gang, hearing of it' could have tried to turn it into a death trap."

  "That might be, too," Johnny admitted.

  The man in the distant boat had been waiting. His boat had drifted near a large rock which thrust out of the bay; he had wedged the end of a boat hook into a crack in this rock, and was holding his little craft stationary. The rock was a bullet-proof shelter.

  "Do you understand me, Senor?" the man yelled. "I have your six friends! They are all safe--so far!"

  "Ham, Patricia, and the squaw!" Doc called. "Who are the other three?"

  "El Rabanos, Senor Oveja, and his daughter!" came the reply.

  "I told you so!" said Long Tom. "When the three got away from me, they jumped from the fryin' pan to the fire. That explains why the machine gunners weren't at the cliff when you arrived. They were watching the Ovejas' camp, and saw us show up there. Then they skipped."

  "This seems to indicate the senorita is straight, after all," Monk grunted.

  "When she said they were camped behind the cliff, she lied," Johnny reminded him.

  "You want to make a swap?" Doc shouted.

  "Si, Si, Senor!" the man in the canoe called hastily, "We will trade our prisoners for the ivory cube."

  "I told you we haven't got the ivory cube!" Doc called back.

  "You are lying, senor," called the canoeman. "I will return in two hours. If you do not give me the ivory cube, one of the prisoners will be shot, and the body tossed out where it will drift ashore!"

  With that, he started the outboard motor, and the square-stern canoe skipped out to sea. Apparently, he had laid down an ultimatum about which there could be no argument.

  Chapter 16 INSIDE THE IVORY BLOCK

  THE boat had hardly started its seaward retreat when Doc Savage whirled on Long Tom.

  "Your electrical ear!" he said. "Get it!"

  Long Tom dashed for the cabin.

  Just as Monk always carried chemical equipment, so did Long Tom carry a variety of electrical devices. Among these was an apparatus which had been useful on many occasions. This consisted of a compact, highly sensitive parabolic microphone pick-up, together with an amplifier of great power. The thing was no radical departure from the listening devices military men use to spot enemy airplanes. However, it was infinitely more compact.

  Long Tom hurriedly assembled the mechanism. The microphone was directional. He pointed it at the receding motor canoe. The outboard engine was no longer audible to the unaided ear.

  Long Tom twisted the dial on his amplifier. There was a loud-speaker device. The sound of the retreating canoe poured out with loud volume.

  They listened to the noise which the sensitive device picked up. After a while the outboard died suddenly.

  Long Tom turned the amplifier on full force. A mosquito flew across the front of the microphone, and sounded like a trimotored airplane. Then the listener picked up several faint shouts, but they were not understandable.

  "Holy cow!" Renny thumped. "They must be holding the prisoners in a boat out at sea!"

  "Take flashlights," Doc directed suddenly. "And hunt for birds' nests in pine trees."

  "Huh?" Monk grunted, and looked as if he had not understood.

  "Birds' nests in pine trees," Doc repeated. "We're not interested in birds' nests in any other kind of trees, though."

  "What do we do when we find them?" Monk wanted to know. He was still puzzled.

  "Climb up and look in them," Doc said.

  "Then what?"

  "When you find the right bird's nest, you won't need to be told."

  The four men went looking for birds' nests. Each had a dubious and puzzled look on his face. Just why Doc was abruptly interested in nests in pine trees, they had no idea.

  Monk cast his light up a tree and spied a telltale knot of twigs, stringy bark, and feathers. He prepared to shin up to the nest.

  "Huntin' birds' nests!" he snorted. "I'm glad Ham ain't here to see! Would he hand out razzberries!"

  "I wouldn't blame him!" Renny boomed. "Especially since you're looking for nests in pine trees."

  "Pine trees--sure!"

  "That's a spruce you're starting to climb!" Renny chuckled

  "Yeah, it is at that," Monk admitted sheepishly, after taking a second look.

  Doc Savage returned to the cabin. He switched on his flashlight, which gave the brilliant beam. From a pocket he drew the aerial photographs which Renny had made. As yet, Doc had not had time to make a complete examination of these photographic prints. He did so now.

  On a picture which had been taken something like seven miles up the coast, he found a tiny grayish spot. This might have been a faded, elongated flyspeck. But under a magnifying glass, it became a small schooner.

  A tender dangled on a painter behind the schooner--a canoe, fitted with an outboard.

  The discovery convinced Doc that it was upon this boat that the prisoners were being held.

  The craft was now standing out to sea, of course.

  Monk came plunging in from the night.

  "I found it, Doc!" he howled.

  THE gorillalike giant of a chemist held his prize in both hands. It was a bird's nest--the nest of a very large bird, judging from its size.

  "How did you know what to look for, Doc?" Monk questioned.

  "Remember the amber-colored, sticky stuff we found on the trousers and on the hands of the murdered Indian?" Doc asked.

  "Sure!"

  "It was gum off a pine tree."

  Monk whistled softly, comprehending. "There was some bark stuck to his trousers, and tiny feathers stuck to his hands."

  "Bark off a pine tree and feathers from a bird's nest," Doc agreed.

  Monk dived a furry hand into the bird's nest.

  "Hocus pocus presto!" he grinned.

  He brought out a block of ivory more than two inches square.

  Renny and Johnny and Long Tom came up. They stared at the block.

  "Boat Face stole it!" Renny thundered. "That's where it went! He hid it in a bird's nest!"

  Doc took the block and turned it in his hand. The workmanship was wonderful. The thing looked perfectly solid.

  Crooking a finger at Monk, Doc said: "I've got a job for you"'

  The bronze giant and the homely chemist retired to the room which held Monk's portable laboratory. Two or three minutes elapsed. When Doc reappeared, he was alone. He carried the block in one hand.

  On a foundation of books, Doc arranged two flashlights 80 that they splashed a brilliant glare on the table. He placed the ivory cube in the illumination.

  Johnny promptly handed over his glasses with the magnifying left lens. The magnifier disclosed narrow, straight cracks along all four corners of the ivory block. They were too small for the eyes to see unaided.

  With his powerful hands, Doc tested the construction of the cube. He was uncertain just how it opened. He tried gentle pressure, without result. He shook it violently, much as one would shake the mercury down in a thermometer. This caused the block to separate into six sections. It had been held together by tiny, ingenious dowel pins.

  The core of the cube was a hard, square block of dried mud. Doc inspected this curiously. He turned the mud slowly in his palm. Then, wheeling abruptly, he went into another room.

  Boat Face had been buried. His squaw, however, had kept the clothing he had been wearing at the time of his death. Doc selected the trousers and turned the pockets inside out. He had done this on a previous search, but he wanted to make sure.

  Several flat leaves, fragments of chewing tobacco, came to light. The tobacco was very black in color.

  Doc turned his attention to the mud cube which he had crushed in his palm. There was a leaf of the black tobacco in the mud. Boat Face's chewing tobacco inside the cube!

  From Monk's room came brisk tinkling of test tubes and mixing beakers.

  Doc's other three aides had been watching the bronze man. Their expressions showed plainly that they were going to ask questions.

  But before they could interrogate him, they all heard the mutter of an approaching outboard motor.

  DOC Savage whipped outdoors. Three of his men followed him. Monk, however, stayed with the job he was doing.

  The sputter of the outboard loudened. A blurred spot appeared out to sea. It soon resolved into the square-sterned canoe. The speedy little craft was crowded with men.

  In the gloom, little could be seen of the canoe passengers. Their forms were dark humps. From each hump a slender, black thorn seemed to project. This proved they were not the prisoners--the thorns were rifle barrels.

  The outboard stopped, and the canoe coasted behind a rock. The armed passengers used boat hooks to keep themselves sheltered behind the stony hump. One or two could be seen using binoculars. They discerned Doc Savage and his aides.

  "Your decision, Senor Savage!" one shouted. "We have found the block," Doc told him "You had it all the time!" the man jeered.

  Doc did not argue. "Where are the prisoners?" he called. "They will be produced when you are ready to make the trade."

  "I'm ready now."

  The men in the motor canoe held a brief consultation. One of the gun barrels was pointed upward. There was a loud report. Evidently the weapon was a shotgun.

  Nothing happened for three or four seconds. Then, high overhead, there was another report and a blinding flash.

  "Regular Fourth of July!" said Renny.

  "It was a flash rocket, fired as a signal," announced Johnny.

  "The prisoners will soon be here," called the man from the outboard canoe.

  Nothing more happened for possibly fifteen minutes. Then, far out to sea, the slow throb of a marine engine came into hearing.

  Doc listened intently to the engine noise.

  "It's a gasoline motor," he decided. "That means there is probably an auxiliary power plant in the schooner."

  SHORTLY afterward, using glasses, Doc was able to discern the craft. It was not more than fifty feet long, but had a wide beam and stout lines. The boat was built for service.

  Outside the inlet, it swung into the teeth of a light breeze. The auxiliary motor, turning slowly, held it stationary.

  "The prisoners are aboard the schooner, senor!" called the man in the motor canoe.

  "How do you know that?" Doc countered.

  Shouts passed between the canoe and the schooner. Following this, Ham's voice rang strongly from the schooner. Ham had a powerful orators' voice, developed by much courtroom work.

  "We're all O. K.!" he shouted. "If they're trying to bargain for our release, Doc, tell 'em to go take a jump at the moon!"

  "Are there six of you?" Doc demanded.

  "Sure! Senor and Senorita Oveja, and El Rabanos, are prisoners, too!"

  Then the spokesman in the canoe interrupted the conversation.

  "Will you turn over the ivory cube for their release?" he called to Doc.

  Doc lowered his voice so that it could by no chance reach any of the swarthy men.

  "Monk!"

  "Coming up!" said Monk, also low-voiced.

  The homely chemist ambled out of the cabin. His hairy hands swung well below his knees. One paw gripped an object wrapped in a handkerchief.

  "All set?" Doc asked.

  "Yep. But I was sure pushed for time."

  Doc and Monk strode together down to the water's edge. For a moment, they were lost to view in the moonlight as they worked through the brush. They waded out until the lapping waves came somewhat above their knees.

  "Come and get it!" Doc called. "But you must release the prisoners!"

  "Si, si!" called the man in the canoe. "The captives will be turned loose the instant we have the ivory block."

  The outboard motor bawled; its propeller threw up a fan of spray. The canoe darted inshore with the speed of a frightened duck.

  At a low word from Doc, Monk retreated hastily and got under cover.

  The canoe swerved inshore and slackened speed. The boat passed Doc slowly at a distance of thirty feet.

  "Throw the cube!" commanded a man. "It had better fall in the canoe, too! We dare not come too close to you. We will free the prisoners when we have it!"

  Doc's arm drew back, shot forward. Square and white, the little block sailed through the moonlight. The man in the canoe caught it.

  "Bueno!" he barked. "Good! Now--this is how we intend to return the prisoners."

  As if the exclamation were a signal, every man in the canoe lifted his rifle. The muzzles lipped flame. Gun sounds blended in a ragged roar!

  AT the moment when he tossed the white cube, Doc Savage was standing in water above his knees. He was not taken unawares. The first rifle barrel was hardly swaying toward him when be doubled, flopping forward violently into the water. He was completely submerged before the shots crashed.

 

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