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

promise that the girl would be a knockout. It did, and so satisfactorily that he was distinctly aware of something turning a handspring in his chest.
    She was a long girl, possessing a sinewy curvaceousness that was pleasant to behold. It made tiny goosebumps appear on his wiry forearms—prickles that had nothing to do with the freshening October night wind. Her makeup was very subdued, or she wore none; she certainly didn’t need it. Her eyes were closed, and a trickle of scarlet crept from one corner of her shapely mouth.
    “Whew!” Gull exploded.
    Maybe he’d killed her! The fall could have broken her neck. Gulliver felt exactly as he had the last time he’d dived into the Santa Fe pond for a swim. It was much too late in the year to go swimming; he’d all but froze.
    He spoke to her wildly, kneaded her slender wrists. This got no result. He began perspiring. He’d better carry her to the old farmer’s house and telephone for a doctor. But dared one move a person with a broken neck? He’d have to go telephone a doctor….
    “No, thanks,” she said meekly. “You can spare me the doctor.”
    Gull was so astonished he failed to notice that he had said nothing aloud about any medico.
    “Glory be! You’re not—”
    “I bit my tongue when I fell,” she explained faintly, and produced a small white handkerchief. “The fall must have stunned me for a moment.” She shut her eyes tightly, apparently waiting for a dizzy feeling to go away.
    Gull, deciding that her throaty voice left nothing to be desired, treated himself to a sigh of relief. Then he noticed her shoes—shoes which seemed rather unfitting for such a beauty; they were heavy leather, and they also had brass caps on the toes and brass reinforcing on the moderately high heels. Her frock, he observed, was of some dark homespun stuff, about as plain a garment, in fact, as could be constructed. It appeared to be burlap. Imagine—a burlap dress! The effect was delightful, though. She certainly was a beauty. He decided it was time he told her he was sorry about making her fall….
    She seized his arm. “That old man! Did he get away?”
    “The one with the hairy ears?”
    “That’s him!” she gasped.
    “He’s still tied up. And in a drunken sleep,” Gull explained, startled by the young woman’s vehemence.
    She tried to get up, made a small sound of pain, and sank back.
    “Get him!” she ordered.
    “Huh?”
    She clutched his arm with both hands, shrilled, “Someone is trying to kill us both! You’re Gulliver Greene—I’ve heard you described. I eavesdropped, but I couldn’t learn anything about the horrible business except that you were one of those to be killed. That old man knows. I was following him. I knocked him down with a stick and was tying him up when you scared me away. Go get him!”
    “But—”
    “Go get him before he escapes!” she said, almost raging. “He’s the key to this whole thing!”
    In her agitation, the girl tried to get up, and did reach her feet, but after two steps in her heavy brass-shod brogans, she swayed dizzily, would have fallen if Gull had not supplied an arm.
    “I seem to be dizzy!” she gasped. “Oh—get that old man!”
    Gull eyed her. “Who are you?”
    “Saint Pete,” the girl snapped. “Oh, do go and—”
    “Wait for me,” Gull grunted. “I’ll bring him here.”
    FRIGHTENED sheep gave Gull an uncomfortable stare as he ran through the red oaks with the flashlight and the shotgun. In the east, there was a faint bumping noise that was probably thunder, but otherwise the night was almost unnaturally quiet and dark—the clouds, packing more tightly overheard, were slowly turning the sky into an infinitely black thing. Gull put the back of a hand against his forehead where the perspiration on his oily skin kept gathering in drops which jiggled down his face with a sensation closely akin to small bugs crawling.
    The old man with the hairy ears still slept, blowing great noisy breaths of