Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 075 - The Gold Ogre

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THE GOLD OGRE
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. THE BULL-VOICED MIDGET
? Chapter II. FOUR FRIENDS
? Chapter III. THE OGRES AND THE BOYS
? Chapter IV. SPELL OF THE OGRES
? Chapter V. THE SPECIALIST IN MYSTERY
? Chapter VI. TERROR AT THE AIRPORT
? Chapter VII. THE MEAN MARCUS GILD
? Chapter VIII. THE SHADOW OF A GIRL
? Chapter IX. TROUBLE HAS A LOUD VOICE
? Chapter X. AIR TRAIL
? Chapter XI. BRONZE MAN DEAD
? Chapter XII. QUARRELSOME HELP
? Chapter XIII. THE FOXES AND THE TRAP
? Chapter XIV. STOWAWAY
? Chapter XV. ISLAND AND CAVERN
? Chapter XVI. THE OGRE’S NEST
? Chapter XVII. HELL IS UNDERGROUND
Scanned and Proofed
by Tom Stephens
Chapter I. THE BULL-VOICED MIDGET
IF anyone had wanted to find the most gentle and most level-headed man in Crescent City, they correctly
could have selected Thomas Worth as the individual.
And if they had wished to pick out the man who was least likely to claim that something unbelievable had
happened to him, they could have taken Thomas Worth. Gentle, middle-aged Thomas Worth had told
very few lies in his life.
This helped make the matter particularly terrifying.
If Thomas Worth had been a lying man, or a drinking man, or even the least bit of a half-wit, people
would have been able to understand it. And they wouldn’t have taken the matter so seriously. And in that
case, Doc Savage might not have learned of the mystery until it was too late to do any good.
Thomas Worth was also a poor man. The fact that he was crippled had a good deal to do with his being
poor, although even before a piece of heavy machinery fell on his leg, he had never been able to make
more than day wages. He was a poor, honest toiler; he just seemed never to be able to get anywhere
much in life. He deserved success. God knows, he deserved it. He was thirty-eight, and looked fifty.
He had a wife who was nice, and a son who was in his teens. The son was a good boy—he was named
Don Worth, and he was already a little too serious for his years, and worked a little too earnestly. At
least, the boy was more serious and worked harder than other boys of his age.
The poverty of Thomas Worth probably had very little to do with the incredible thing that happened,
except that it accounted for his being employed as night watchman at the airport.
Thomas Worth’s job was to hobble around the Crescent City airport at intervals each night, and stick the
beam of a powerful flashlight into dark spots. Usually, he didn’t have any trouble. He never even carried
a gun. Once in a while, somebody would try to pilfer light bulbs out of the field border lights, but that was
about all. It was simple work, not difficult, and honest Thomas Worth was deeply grateful for it.
He religiously made his rounds of the airport at hour intervals—first at eight o’clock, when he went on
duty, then at nine, at ten, at eleven, at midnight, and so on.
Thomas Worth was making his midnight round when he met the little golden dwarf.
Later, it became reasonably certain that this was the first time one of the public had seen a gold ogre.
FIRST, there was a voice in the darkness.
"Be careful where you’re going!"
Thomas Worth jerked to an astonished stop. It was very dark. He had not been using his flashlight for a
few moments; often he needed to use both hands on his cane, so he frequently kept his flashlight in his
pocket when not in use.
"What?" he said.
"You almost stepped on me," said the voice.
It came from Thomas Worth’s feet. It was a small voice, but very hoarse and harsh. It reminded Thomas
Worth of the way a bull would sound, if the bull was about a foot high.
"Say!" said Thomas Worth. "Who in blazes are you?"
"Never mind that. Just don’t step on me."
Thomas Worth decided it was either a tramp or an intoxicated man, both of which types were sometimes
seen around the airport, and occasionally were found sleeping in secluded spots. He leaned on his cane,
dug out his flashlight and pressed the button.
He got the big shock of his life.
It was a hideous little gold man. A man who looked to be not much more than two feet high. The fellow
had a wide thick-lipped mouth, small pig eyes, and two holes for a nose. His face was not hairy; the rest
of him was. Long, scraggly, golden-colored hair that looked like gilded moss.
The little golden ogre was naked except for a loincloth. This was brown, rather than golden, and looked
as if it was made out of muskrat fur. His sandals were made of some kind of tree bark, held on by thongs
which ran up between his small gnarled toes and tied around his hairy golden ankles.
A club was gripped by the little ogre. The club wasn’t gold either; it was made of a dark wood and
studded with large thorns. The small golden ogre—he resembled a miniature caveman—gripped the club
with both hands, and there was an expression of bestial ferocity on his face.
Thomas Worth took a long look—and wondered if he had gone crazy. He had been feeling all right
lately; he hadn’t done more than his usual amount of worrying—it wasn’t likely his mind had slipped.
Another possible explanation for this apparition occurred to Thomas Worth.
"What carnival did you escape from?" he asked.
"Carnival?" said the golden midget. "What’s a carnival?"
"Maybe it was a circus?"
"What is a circus?"
"What are you?" Thomas Worth demanded.
The small man did not answer at once. His eyes had become accustomed to the light, and he was staring
at Thomas Worth. Judging by his expression, he was just as flabbergasted as the bigger man.
"Yah, yah!" the little man said suddenly.
"What?"
"Yah, yah!" repeated the ugly golden midget.
"I don’t understand what you’re trying to say—"
The ogre struck Thomas Worth with his club. It happened with surprising speed. The club struck Thomas
Worth’s serviceable leg and the bigger man cried out in involuntary pain and fell to the ground.
It was as if electric sparks had struck Thomas Worth’s leg. The feeling spread; a kind of tingling agony
rushed through his body until it reached his brain—and made Thomas Worth unconscious.
THE Crescent City airport remained open day and night, as befitted the flying field of a metropolis such
as Crescent City, which was a manufacturing city of some consequence located on the shore of one of
the Great Lakes. Several men were on duty during the night, most of them young fellows, and all of them
nice. They liked Thomas Worth, and pitied him while at the same time respecting him. For Thomas
Worth was a man who was struggling along and supporting a family against tremendous odds.
They soon missed their watchman that night at the airport.
Between one and two o’clock, they began looking for Thomas Worth. At first, two mechanics and a
pilot waiting for duty made a casual search. Before morning, everybody was looking, and all the giant
floodlights around the airport had been turned on, making it even brighter than it was after daylight came.
They did not find Thomas Worth.
Of course, they sent messengers to Thomas Worth’s home—the Worth family was too poor to afford a
telephone—and learned that the father had not merely gone home.
Thomas Worth’s wife, Mary, was home, and she naturally became quite alarmed, particularly since she
knew of no reason why Thomas Worth should disappear. Her son, Don, was away from home, working
at a summer camp for boys.
"It is not at all like Thomas to go away without a word," Mary Worth said. "I am sure there must be a
good reason."
Later, she said, "Please, couldn’t we keep my son Don from learning his poor father had disappeared?
Don is working his way at summer camp."
The summer camp authorities coöperated, so Don Worth did not learn anything about the mystery just
yet.
The airport men were convinced there must be a reason, too. But what was it? They didn’t know. They
couldn’t find any clues. No abandoned wells, or old cisterns or anything like that.
Two days passed and everybody got worried.
The police had taken up the matter, and teletyped a description of missing Thomas Worth to every place
where they thought it would do any good. The police were also keeping a sharp lookout for bodies that
might float up in the lake, and the State troopers were giving tramps close examinations.
The vanishing of Thomas Worth got in the newspapers in a small way. The missing man was not an
important person, so the story was a mere paragraph in a few of the metropolitan papers, to which it was
carried by the wire services. Probably if Thomas Worth had been a night watchman for anything but an
airport, his vanishing would not even have seen print outside Crescent City. There is still something
romantic about airports, and everything connected with them.
The news item about Thomas Worth landed on the desk of Doc Savage.
It did not do any good, which was too bad. Doc Savage’s assistants merely kept a clipping file of
anything that seemed unusual. This clipping was one among many. It merely looked like the case of a
poor man who had skipped out and abandoned his family—judging from the clipping’s mere statement
that an airport watchman named Thomas Worth had disappeared in Crescent City.
So Doc Savage showed no interest in the Thomas Worth matter at this point. Doc Savage was a
remarkable individual, a man of astounding abilities, and also a man who followed one of the strangest of
careers—but he was no clairvoyant. He was not superhuman. He didn’t know that Thomas Worth had
met a little gold ogre of a caveman in the darkness near the Crescent City airport.
So Doc Savage just went on about his business, which was a very strange business indeed.
FOUR days later. Not midnight this time, but rather close to it. Ten minutes after eleven that night.
Mary Worth, the wife of missing Thomas Worth, heard a rasping sound on the front porch. Mary Worth
had been sitting, hands clasped lightly, waiting without knowing what she was waiting for. She sprang up.
"Who is it?" she demanded nervously.
The dragging sound was repeated, followed by a low whimpering noise. It might have been one of the
neighbors’ dogs lying down on the porch and whining, but Mary Worth opened the door anyway.
Mary Worth immediately fainted.
The Worths could barely afford electric lights, and they had to burn twenty-five-watt and thirty-watt
bulbs to save money, and these did not give much light—but enough to show Mary Worth what made
her faint.
Later she regained consciousness—how much later it was, she didn’t know—and she dragged what she
had found on the porch into the house, without knowing how she managed that, either. It was all
confused and terrible. She must have sobbed the whole time, because she realized later that her face was
wet.
It was her missing husband she had found. At last he opened his eyes. He seemed to want to speak, but
restrained himself, as if afraid to say what was in his mind.
Thomas Worth drank of a broth his terror-stricken wife made him; obviously he’d had nothing to eat for
some time. He rested, waited for the broth to give him strength, in the meantime letting his wife bathe and
dress the strange wounds on his body.
"Mary, do any of the neighbors know I have come back?"
Those were his first words.
Mary Worth shook her head. She had been too flustered to call the neighbors.
"Don’t tell them," Thomas Worth said weakly, "until you hear my story. And maybe we had better not tell
anyone my story."
"Not tell anyone!" Mary Worth gasped. "Why?"
Thomas Worth muttered, "Wait until you hear it, and you will understand."
He stirred a little, then groaned involuntarily. The flesh was cut deeply in circles around his wrists, and his
hands were badly skinned, as if he had been bound, and had torn himself free. There were many other
cuts and abrasions on his body. But the bruises were the worst. He was bruised from head to foot, not
large bruises, but hideous ones; many of them had started to fester.
"What happened to you, Tom?" his wife asked with tense anxiety.
Thomas Worth lay back on the pillow, clenched his fists against the pain, and began his story.
"This will sound utterly insane, Mary, so please just sit and listen until I finish," he said. "I was making my
midnight round at the airport, and I found a hideous little gold man in the darkness. He wore no clothes
except a loincloth, and he carried a club. He looked like the pictures of old-time cavemen. In height, he
reached only a little above my knees. The gold-colored dwarf struck me with his club and I became
unconscious instantly."
Thomas Worth shut his eyes and shuddered.
"When I regained consciousness," he continued, "I was in a great stone cavern of a place. There were
many of the little golden ogres present. I was a prisoner. I was tied. I don’t know how many of the
hideous dwarfs there were, but there must have been a lot of them, although I never saw over a dozen
together in a group at any one time. They tortured me."
He saw that his bewildered wife was about to speak, and he shook his head at her.
"The gold ogres beat me with their clubs," he said. "It was horrible. They could speak English, although I
could hardly understand some of them. They were going to do something horrible to me. I was to be
beaten for days, first, then their medicine man was going to put some kind of terrible spell on me. I don’t
know what they meant by the spell."
Thomas Worth suddenly shoved himself up tensely on the cot. His face was a picture of horror.
"Mary—that wasn’t all!" he gasped. "They planned something hideous! Against Crescent City. Against
everybody living here! I don’t know what it is! I just heard them talk."
Thomas Worth shuddered again, then turned over and buried his face in his hands,
"I escaped," he said, "before the medicine man got around to doing whatever he was going to do to me."
THE quiet of the night was very still in the modest home of Thomas and Mary Worth. The alarm clock
had stopped, as it had a habit of doing, and once in a while the kitchen faucet dripped with a distinct
splatter of a sound. In the neighborhood somewhere, a radio played, and a dog began barking furiously,
then stopped.
Thomas Worth said, "Mary."
"Yes?"
"Now you understand why I didn’t want the neighbors to hear my story."
Mary Worth nodded miserably. "They wouldn’t believe it."
"Worse. They would think I was crazy."
"What about telling the police?" Mary Worth asked uneasily.
"Do you think they’ll have me committed to an insane asylum?" Thomas Worth asked.
Mary Worth began to tremble; suddenly she burst into tears and buried her face in the worn cover which
she had spread over her husband.
"Oh, Tom, Tom! What horrible thing is wrong? What did happen to you? Think, Tom. Think! Try to tell
me what really did happen to you!"
Thomas Worth shuddered.
"See," he said. "Even you don’t believe me."
There was no answer except his stricken wife’s uncontrollable sobbing.
"Does Don know I was—was gone?" Thomas Worth asked.
"No. They kept it from him at the summer camp."
"It was very kind of them, because Don would have worried."
His wife’s reaction to his fantastic tale had a distinct effect upon Thomas Worth. She was the one person
in the world who was most likely to believe him. Obviously, she thought he was suffering hallucinations.
What would the police think? He visualized himself committed to a mental institution, and broke out in an
agonized sweat.
Thomas Worth thereafter refused to talk. Perhaps he was off mentally. Time after time, that suspicion had
struck him during the course of his incredible experience. What was happening was something that
couldn’t happen. Thomas Worth realized that.
When the police came, Thomas Worth only muttered incoherently. The doctors explained that he was
delirious from suffering, which was what he wanted them to think. He didn’t tell them a thing about the
little golden ogres. He was afraid to.
So the newspapers carried a short item, saying Thomas Worth had returned home, apparently suffering
from exposure and a beating at the hands of persons unknown, probably enemies he had made in the
course of his duties as a night watchman.
This item was clipped and found its way to Doc Savage’s desk, where it was filed with the article about
Thomas Worth’s disappearance. And that was that. Nothing to arouse Doc Savage’s interest.
It was unfortunate that Doc Savage saw nothing in the matter that required his attention, because the Man
of Bronze, as the remarkable Doc Savage was known, might have prevented what happened next.
Thomas Worth disappeared again. There was absolutely nothing to show how or why. He just
disappeared.
This time, the news was sent to the missing man’s son, Don Worth.
Chapter II. FOUR FRIENDS
IT was doubtful if there existed a more pleasant summer camp for boys than Camp
Indian-Laughs-And-Laughs. The camp was named after the cliff-bordered lake cove, on the shores of
which it was situated. How the cove got the name was a mystery, but many an Indian brave probably
laughed with delight when he first saw the snug cove in which great fish leaped all night long and the
towering cliffs, and the little brooks that raced over the edge and fell sheer, turning into sparkling spray so
that, during all hours when the sun shone, one could see at least one rainbow and often many, no matter
in what part of the cove one stood.
Camp Indian-Laughs-And-Laughs was composed of a number of cabins and larger buildings, all made of
logs, and surrounded by a stockade, after the fashion of forts in the frontier days. Picturesque was a
word that hardly did the place justice. An array of birch-bark and canvas-covered canoes rested on
racks along the lake shore.
The parents of boys who sent their sons to Camp Indian-Laughs-And-Laughs found it rather expensive.
Consequently, there was a goodly number of sons of wealthy parents.
There were other boys, however, who worked their way through.
Don Worth was one of the working boys.
As yet, Don Worth had no inkling that anything mysterious had happened to his father, poor crippled
Thomas Worth, who was airport night watchman in Crescent City.
Don Worth was at one of his tasks, chopping wood for the camp fireplaces.
His ax flashed, hissed and bit off great chips. He was almost a giant for his age—although still a youth,
there were muscles cabled across his shoulders, and coiled inside his coat sleeves that made him more
than a physical match for most fully grown men. Other boys were frequently amazed at big, quiet, serious
Don Worth’s muscular strength. He was a young Hercules.
Don Worth had a will power that was stronger than his big muscles, although you didn’t realize that until
you knew him well. He was a very gentle young man who never forced his ideas on anybody; also he
was extremely ambitious. He was going to make a success in life, no matter how much earnest work it
took. He got up early and went to work, and he labored industriously until dark, then usually could be
found studying. Most busy bees were loafers compared to Don Worth.
Because he was so serious about life, Don Worth was kidded a lot. He took the razzing good-naturedly,
and everybody liked him. Now and then some bully mistook his quiet seriousness for cowardice, so that
Don Worth occasionally had a fight. The fight usually consisted of Don Worth’s taking hold of the bully,
and after he’d had hold for a moment or so, the opponent was invariably howling and glad for a chance
to run.
The camp chief approached Don Worth and handed him a telegram. Don opened it and read:
SOMETHING I CANNOT UNDERSTAND HAS HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER. HE
DISAPPEARED, THEN CAME BACK LOOKING AS IF HE HAD BEEN TERRIBLY BEATEN.
NOW HE HAS VANISHED AGAIN. TRY NOT TO WORRY.
YOUR MOTHER.
Don Worth was shocked and mystified.
"But this is the first I knew of anything wrong!" he exclaimed.
"I know," the camp chief said. "Your mother asked us to keep it from you at first, so you would not be
worried."
The camp chief then handed Don Worth a sheaf of clippings from the Crescent City newspapers. Don
read them, and began to get a feeling of deep bewilderment and uneasiness.
He went looking for B. Elmer Dexter.
He was not at all surprised when he found B. Elmer Dexter concocting a new get-rich-quick scheme.
B. ELMER DEXTER was about the same age as young Don Worth, and they were pals. They had just
two things in common. Both owned poor parents, and both were determined to make a success—but B.
Elmer Dexter had no intention of working for it. Work? Not for B. Elmer. Not while he had so many
swell ideas for getting rich in a hurry.
B. Elmer was surrounded by sheets of paper, a borrowed typewriter, and enthusiasm.
"I’m writing letters to companies that make diving suits," he explained rapidly. "You know how many
ships loaded with coal and iron ore have sunk in the Great Lakes? Dozens! Hundreds! I’m going to start
salvaging them all. We’ll raise the ships and get the cargo. We’re young fellows, so the newspapers will
play it up. Give us a lot of publicity. The companies will furnish us the diving suits free because of the
publicity. Like companies furnished stuff to Admiral Byrd for his South Pole exploring. There’s millions in
it! Millions! And it won’t cost us a cent! I’m gonna let you in on it, and Mental Byron, and Funny Tucker.
We’ll all make so much money that— Say, what’s the matter with you?"
"Read this," Don Worth said, and passed over the telegram and the newspaper clippings.
B. Elmer Dexter read swiftly. He did everything swiftly. He was a slender fellow with dark hair, snapping
eyes, more conversation than a radio announcer, and a personality that whizzed like an electric dynamo.
He was almost completely the opposite of big, serious, placid Don Worth.
"Blazes!" said B. Elmer, waving the telegram. "What does this mean?"
"I do not know," Don replied seriously.
B. Elmer jumped up, waved the telegram and the clippings again.
"Let’s see what Mental Byron thinks of it," he said. "Mental knows everything."
Don Worth nodded. The opinion of Morris (Mental) Byron would be worth while. Everybody respected
Mental’s brains and thinking powers.
They found Mental Byron, as they expected, seated comfortably against a boulder on the lake shore,
cogitating. The boulder was his favorite spot, for it afforded one of the most inspirational and beautiful
views around Camp Indian-Laughs-And-Laughs. Mental could sit for hours and contemplate something
beautiful. He was a dreamer. And no mean philosopher, either.
"Hello," Mental said placidly.
No one had ever seen Mental any other way than calm.
He was a long youth with a rugged face—in fact, he looked remarkably like the picture of Abe Lincoln.
"We’ve got trouble," B. Elmer explained.
Mental Byron smiled slightly and said, "Don’t be too worried when you stumble. Remember, a worm is
the only thing that can’t fall down."
Which was a typical piece of Morris Mental Byron’s philosophy.
"Give the brains the telegram and clippings," B. Elmer told Don Worth, "and see what he thinks."
Mental took the message and examined it thoughtfully. From his manner, one would have guessed him as
much older, whereas he was exactly the same age as Don Worth and B. Elmer Dexter.
"This is very strange," he declared. He looked at Don Worth. "What is your thought about this?"
"My first impulse was to hurry home," Don said.
Mental nodded. "Being on the right track is a very good thing. But if you just stand there, you’ll likely get
run over."
Don asked, "You mean I should go home?"
"Exactly."
"And we should go with you," Mental Byron added. "If two heads are better than one, think how good
three heads would be."
"NOW look here," Don Worth said uncomfortably, "I can’t burden you with my troubles. You’re having
a swell time here at camp, and you don’t really want to go back to Crescent City. Thanks a lot. I
appreciate it, but you fellows wouldn’t have a good time going with me."
"I think we would," Mental said.
"Why?"
"We like excitement. And this sounds exciting."
As if this dismissed any chances for further argument, Mental arose from the rock and said, "I’ll have my
bag packed in ten minutes."
"I’ll have my bag in five!" B. Elmer yelled. He started to dash away, stopped, shouted, "Say, maybe we
can solve this mystery, then make it into a story and sell it to the movies for a mint of money!"
And he was off after his bag.
"B. Elmer can see a get-rich-quick scheme in everything," Don chuckled.
Mental nodded soberly. "If you go around firing a shotgun in the air long enough, you’re bound to hit a
duck eventually. Some day, one of B. Elmer’s ideas will click."
Don Worth was secretly delighted at the idea of his two pals accompanying him, but he did not want
them to miss out on the fun of Camp Indian-Laughs-And-Laughs, so he was earnest in his protestations
that they were working a hardship on themselves. Mental only smiled.
They went looking for their third pal.
"Where do you suppose Funny Tucker is?" Don pondered.
"Did you notice the luncheon he ate? Probably he’ll be in his cabin repenting."
Leander (Funny) Tucker was in his cabin, all right, and he was full of repentance. Funny Tucker, if he
didn’t watch out, would soon be as wide as he was tall—but there was scant possibility of his watching.
Funny liked his food. Also his laughs. Funny Tucker was a roly-poly joy boy without a care in life. His
fund of gags, both his own and those purloined from the radio and movies, was unlimited.
Funny was holding his stomach.
"If the bravest are the tenderest," he complained, "the steer that provided that luncheon steak was sure a
coward!"
"What you feel is probably the humiliation of the steer at finding out one boy could eat all of him," Mental
advised.
"I didn’t eat the whole steer. Only seven steaks."
When he heard of their plans, Funny Tucker forgot his indigestion.
"Excitement!" he exclaimed. "Hot ziggety!"
The four of them caught the midafternoon launch that brought the daily mail and provisions to Camp
Indian-Laughs-And-Laughs. It was with regret that they watched the camp, where they’d had so much
fun, apparently sink into the sun-jeweled waves as the launch carried them away. They caught a train at
摘要：

THEGOLDOGREADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.THEBULL-VOICEDMIDGET?ChapterII.FOURFRIENDS?ChapterIII.THEOGRESANDTHEBOYS?ChapterIV.SPELLOFTHEOGRES?ChapterV.THESPECIALISTINMYSTERY?ChapterVI.TERRORATTHEAIRPORT?ChapterVII.THEMEANMARC...

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