The Mystery on Snow by Kenneth Robeson;Lester Dent

Author:Kenneth Robeson;Lester Dent
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-06-20T01:28:02+00:00

WITHIN sight of the camp of mystery once again, Doc Savage came to a halt. The dogs were behaving strangely.

Holding his breath, so that it would not make steam before his eyes, Doc watched the huskies. Before, they had given the bronze man their attention. But now, when he was not near, they were staring at something else—a near-by snowdrift.

Doc advanced rapidly. The sledge team shifted their attention from the drift to him.

Directly toward the drift, the bronze man swung. He was ten feet from it when a great flurry arose in the white pile. Geyser fashion, the snow erupted.

A man appeared. He had been perfectly hidden there, all the time. Without a word, the fellow plunged away in wild flight. He did not have snowshoes. Floundering in the deep snow, he made hardly any progress at all.

Doc ripped forward, his great speed hampered little by the ponderous snowshoe webs.

The man standing in the snow wrenched out a knife.

"Keep away from me!" he yelled.

His voice was deep and showed evidences of culture. The man himself was of average size. He had a skin remarkably white for one dwelling in the northland, where the glare of sun on snow produces complexions almost as dark as those in the tropics. His garb was the regulation parka, skin trousers and moosehide moccasins.

Doc Savage voiced no word. He continued his rush toward the stranger.

"Get back!" the other shrilled.

Doc towered over him.

The fellow lunged desperately with his knife.

There was a blurred movement, a slapping sound—and the man stared vacantly at the hand which had held the knife. The blade was gone! It had been extracted from his clutch with a swiftness which defeated his eyes.

He started, as if vastly surprised, when he saw the glittering steel in Doc’s hand.

The bronze man tossed the blade over by the camp fire.

"How many more of you are hidden in the snowdrift?" he asked dryly.

The other shivered, stared, said nothing.

Doc walked slowly around the camp, studying the drifts. He perceived why he had not discovered the presence of the man earlier. The dogs had walked to the drifts in which the fellow was concealed, trampling out such traces as the man had made in burying himself.

He kicked about where the man had lain, wondering if others were hidden there. There was no one else. Doc’s bootings brought to light an automatic pistol, a large weapon, of foreign manufacture.

Doc’s bronze fingers tested the mechanism. Oil, unfitted to the terrific cold of the north, had been used upon it. This had congealed solidly. The weapon was literally frozen. It would not discharge when Doc pulled the trigger.

He went back to the pale man, and asked, "Are you Ben Lane?"

Before answering, the other considered for some time.

"I am Kulden," he said at last.

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