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

gotten tight together, retreated to this brush patch, and had a drunken fight. Such a possibility would explain this part of the night’s events in a satisfactory manner.
    The ancient giant began to mumble and Gull switched off the light and bent close to listen to the gibberish.
    “Alive—Columbus alive—positive,”  The old fellow said with unexpected distinctness.
    Gull put his teeth together until he could feel the tightness in his jaw muscles. It didn’t appear that this part of the mystery was going to be explained merely as a fight between two stews.
    Gull said, “Aren’t you stretching it a little, dad?” grimly.
    He was surprised when the old man heard that and reacted to it by opening his eyes.
    “Who’re you?” he wanted to know.
    There was no reason why he shouldn’t be told, Gull decided.
    “Gulliver Greene,” explained Gull.
    “Liar!”
    “What makes you think so, dad?”
    The old fellow hiccoughed with exactly the same sound as if a dog had barked. He was very drunk, even if he could talk.
    “Gulliver dead—they killed him—”
    Gull experienced a sensation between his shoulder blades which he didn’t particularly care for.
    “Why the killing, dad?” he asked tensely.
    The old man reared up suddenly and began to mumble, his voice thick and vague, hardly understandable.
    “—that dwarf—on my trail—The Great Gulliver’ll know whash shush-should—aw, hecksh wizzit—shoo—shouldn’t never monkey wish—wish—”
    Gull shook him. “Who tied you up?”
    “Huh?” He roused slightly. “Mush shaw your light and run.”
    “What! Someone was here just now?”
    “Sush-sure!” He rocked and his eyes closed.
    “Where did they go?” Gull demanded.
    But the old man made noises which sounded as if an idiot was trying baby talk, then went to sleep.
    Gull straightened, held the scattergun tightly, listened, and heard nothing but the alcoholic breathing of the old man at his feet, but did not feel reassured. If there was someone around…. Well, they’d be escaping while he stood there—would be gone before the police arrived.
    Gull shoved his jaw forward suddenly, angrily deciding he’d had about enough pushing around for the night. He didn’t like being baffled, didn’t enthuse over this stuff about people going to kill him—the more he thought about it, the more wrathful he became. He’d grab this prowler. Then he’d knock some explanations out of somebody….
    He began to prowl through the brush, searching. The undergrowth was red oaks and was being pastured with sheep, hence the ground was free of weeds and tall grass except for now and then a bunch of buckbrush. Silent progress was not difficult, and he got along excellently until he stepped on something which lunged, emitted a bleat and upset him. A sheep. There were other sheep, a whole brush patch full of them, and they now scattered through the darkness in all directions. They could go, “Baa-a-a!” louder than any sheep Gull had ever heard.
    Since there was nothing to be lost, he took out with the sheep, running south, hoping that he sounded like another sheep. He came out of the brush and unexpectedly ran into a barbed wire fence, but had luckily slowed. It was intensely dark due to the thickening clouds.
    Gull had hold of the top strand of barbed wire, feeling to learn which way it ran, when it went taut. It had been very slack; now it not only tightened, but moved in a revealing way—someone was climbing over the loose fence not many yards away.
    Gull yanked the wire. The other person overbalanced, fell off the fence; a hard fall, from the sound. Rather approving of himself, Gull leveled the shotgun and poked light out of the flash lens.
    Then he did not feel so proud of himself because the cinnamon-haired girl on the ground looked as if she might be lifeless.
    GULLIVER leaped to the young woman, who lay face down, and turned her over, wondering if the wealth of entrancing cinnamon-hued hair would carry out a