Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 011 - Brand of the Werewolf

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BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter 1. THE STRANGE MESSAGE
? Chapter 2. THE TRAIN WEREWOLF
? Chapter 3. WARNING OF THE WEREWOLF
? Chapter 4. DEAD MAN
? Chapter 5. THE WEREWOLF CRIES
? Chapter 6. SQUARE WHITE DEATH
? Chapter 7. STRANGE ATTACKERS
? Chapter 8. THE MAN IN THE WHITE HAT
? Chapter 9. THE IVORY-CUBE TRAIL
? Chapter 10. CABIN OF MURDER
? Chapter 11. THE VANISHED BOX
? Chapter 12. THE HAND THAT BECKONED
? Chapter 13. AN OFFER
? Chapter 14. THE TRAP IN A TRAP
? Chapter 15. WHEN TROUBLE DOUBLES
? Chapter 16. INSIDE THE IVORY BLOCK
? Chapter 17. INTO THE EARTH
? Chapter 18. THE SKELETON CREW
? Chapter 19. THE KILLING DEAD
Chapter 1. THE STRANGE MESSAGE
IT was a little way station on the transcontinental railroad in western Canada. Only one man worked
there. He had what railroaders call an "OS" job. About all he had to do was "OS" trains - telegraph the
dispatcher that they were passing his point.
Usually, nothing much ever happened around there.
Just now, however, the telegrapher looked as if things were happening - big things. His manner was as
excited as that of a small boy about to see the circus.
The thing which had flustered him was a telegram that he had just copied. It was addressed to a
passenger on the fast express train which was due to arrive soon.
The operator interrupted his routine work frequently to stare at the name of the individual to whom the
message was going. He scratched his head.
"If that man is the fellow I think he is - " He finished his remark with a low whistle of amazement.
Some minutes later, the brass pounder gave a start as if he had just thought of something. He got up
hastily and went to a row of shelves in the rear of the room. These held magazines. Due to the loneliness
of his post, the operator was a heavy reader.
He picked out and thumbed through several magazines which made a practice of publishing stories of
famous men. The cover design of one of these consisted of a large bronze-colored question mark.
Printed across this were the words:
THE MAN OF MYSTERY (Story on page 9)
The telegrapher opened the magazine to page nine. The Story was what writers call a "fact article." Every
word was Supposed to be the truth. More large black type asked:
WHO IS PROBABLY THE MOST AMAZING OF LIVING MEN?
The telegraph operator had read this story before. But now he started to peruse it again. He was
interrupted.
A train whistled in the distance, and soon its approaching roar was soon audible.
It was the fast passenger. Smoke and steam rolling, air brakes shrieking, the engine and string of coaches
came to a halt. A regular stop for water was made here.
Wilkie came in. Wilkie was the conductor. He had a large head, and an extraordinarily prominent
stomach. He looked like a pleasant little goblin in a uniform.
"Hyah, brass mauler!" he greeted cheerfully.
With a dramatic gesture, the operator passed over the telegram.
"Message for one of the passengers, eh?" said Wilkie, and started to stuff the missive in a pocket
"Wait a minute!" ejaculated the telegrapher. "Look who that's for!"
Wilkie eyed the name on the telegram.
"For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed.
"I KNEW you'd heard of him," the operator said triumphantly.
Wilkie absently removed the uniform cap from his enormous head. "Do you reckon this is the same
man?"
"I'm betting it is," said the telegrapher. "He's taking a vacation - him and the five men who help him. He
has a relative up in the woods along the coast. He's paying a visit there."
"How do you know that?" Wilkie demanded.
The operator grinned. "It's kinda lonesome here, and I km time by listening to the messages that go back
and forth over the wires. I heard the message he sent, saying he was coming with his five friends."
Wilkie hesitated, then read the message. As an employee of the company, he probably had a right to do
this.
"Whew!" he exclaimed. "If that chap was a relative of mine, I wouldn't send him a telegram like this!"
"Me either!" the operator replied. He secured the magazine which he had started to read. "Say, did you
see the article in here about that fellow?"
Wilkie glanced at the magazine. "Nope. I'd like to read it, too."
"Take it." The operator passed the magazine over. "It's sure worth reading. It tells some of the things he
and his five men have done. I tell you, Wilkie, a lot of the things are hard to believe. This fellow must be a
superman!"
"Them writers sometimes exaggerate," Wilkie said. "Not in this magazine," the telegrapher assured him.
"It's got a reputation of sticking close to the truth."
The engine whistle moaned out. Echoes came slamming back from the timbered hills.
"That's the ol' highballl" Wilkie wheeled. "Thanks for the magazine. Be seeing you, brass pounder."
The train was moving. With a smoothness that came of long practice, Wilkie swung aboard. He headed
for the cars which held drawing-rooms. He walked the swaying aisles with the proficiency of a sailor on a
rolling deck of a storm-tossed ship.
Opening the magazine at page nine, he stared at the article. The first paragraph gripped him. Absorbed in
his reading, he nearly fell over a suitcase which some traveler had left protruding into the aisle.
"What a man!" Wilkie ejaculated.
The traveler who owned the suitcase, mistakenly thinking the remark was directed at himself, looked
indignant.
Wilkie reached the drawing-room; and found the porter. "I'm hunting for this man," he said, and showed
the name on the telegram.
"Yassah!" gulped the porter. "Golly me! Dat's de stranges' lookin' man Ah evah saw!"
"What's strange about him?"
"Man, he am de bigges' fella yo' evah laid yo' eyes on!" The porter gazed ecstatically ceilingward. "When
he looks at yo', yo' jus' kinda turns inside out. Ah seed him with his shirt off, takin' some kinda exercises.
Ah nevah seed such muscles befo'. Dey was like big ropes tied around him."
Wilkie nodded. He had come on duty at the last division point, and had not seen all the passengers. "In
the observation car, eh? And I'll know him when I see him?"
"Yo' cain't miss him! He's a great big bronze man!"
Wilkie headed for the observation car.
BACK in the tiny way station, the telegraph sounder was clicking noisily. The operator sat down at his
typewriter to receive.
He copied the incoming message number, the office of origin, and the address. The missive was destined
for a passenger on another train.
The telegrapher reached over to his key and "broke."
"Wrong number," he transmitted.
Telegrams were numbered in consecutive order. This was to prevent a telegrapher sending one "into the
air" - trans mitting a message which was not received at the other end.
"It's the right number," the man at the distant key tapped.
"You're shy a number," explained the station wireman. "You sent me a message half an hour ago."
"The last message we sent you was four hours ago," rattled the sounder.
The telegrapher shook his head in bewilderment. Getting out his carbon copy of the message which he
had given to Wilkie, he "traced" it to the distant man - outlining its contents.
"We sent no such message," he was informed.
"I received it," the station operator clicked back. "There's something strange about this. Do you think the
wires were tapped?"
"Search me."
The telegrapher sat and pondered. He reached a decision. Grasping the key, he transmitted: "I'm going to
wire ahead to the next station, and let Wilkie know what happened."
"Why go to all that trouble?" the distant operator demanded.
"Because both Wilkie and I thought the contents of that message were strange. We both remarked that it
was an unusual communication for this man to receive."
"What do you know about the business of the man the message was going to?"
"I've read of the fellow," tapped the station operator. "I'll tell you about him later. He's worth hearing
about. But I'm going to wire Wilkie now."
He began to maul out the call letters of a station at which Wilkie's train would soon arrive.
The station door opened furtively behind him. It made no noise. Two men crept in. They were clad in
greasespattered coveralls. Both had handkerchiefs tied over their faces, and both carried revolvers.
The telegrapher, absorbed in calling, did not hear them. It was doubtful if he ever knew of their
presence.
One of the marauders jammed his revolver to the operator's temple, and pulled the trigger. The report of
the shot was deafening.
The operator tumbled from his chair. He had died instantly.
Reaching over, the murderer grasped the telegraph key. "Never mind that stuff about another message,"
he transmitted. "I was mistaken."
"That lonesome place must be driving you nuts," chided the distant telegrapher, thinking he was still
talking to the station man.
The killer gave an ugly laugh. He grabbed the key again. "Nuts, nuts! Ha, ha, ha!" he transmitted
erratically. "King George couldn't be crazy. Ha, ha! I'm King George - "
For several minutes he sent crazily, in the manner of a demented man. Then he carefully wiped the finger
prints off the murder revolver and placed it in the fingers of the lifeless station telegrapher.
"That fixes it up," he told his companion. "They'll think he went mad and committed suicide. Nobody can
trace my gun. The numbers are filed off."
"I don't like this!" gulped the fellow's companion. "We hadda keep 'em from findin' out we tapped the
wire and sent that message, didn't we? C'mon! Let's blowl"
The pair departed. Some time later, a somber black monoplane lifted them from a level bit of grassland
which lay about three miles from the tiny station.
The plane moaned off in the eye of the evening sun. It was following the railroad westward, as if in pursuit
of the passenger train.
WILKIE, the conductor, stood stock-still in the observation car and stared. The colored porter's words,
and what he had read of the article in the magazine, had prepared him to a degree for what he was
seeing. Yet the personage before him was even more remarkable than he had expected.
Had Wilkie not known better, he would have sworn the individual was a statue sculptured from solid
bronze. The effect of the metallic figure was amazing.
The man's unusually high forehead, the muscular and strong mouth, the lean and corded cheeks, denoted
a rare power of character. The bronze hair was a shade darker than the bronze skin. It lay straight and
smooth.
Only by comparing the bronze man's size to that of the observation car chair in which he sat, were his
gigantic proportions evident. The bulk of his great frame was lost in its perfect symmetry. No part of the
man seemed overdeveloped.
Wilkie snapped himself out of his trance and advanced, "Doc Savage?" he asked.
The bronze man glanced up.
Wilkie suddenly realized the most striking thing about the fellow was his eyes. They were like pools of
flake gold glistening in the afternoon sunlight that reflected through the train windows. Their gaze
possessed an almost hypnotic quality, a strange ability to literally convey the owner's desires with their
glance.
Undeniably, here was an amazing man.
"Doc Savage," he said. "That is right."
The man's voice impressed Wilkie as being very much in keeping with his appearance. It was vibrant with
controlled power.
"A wire came for you at the last station," said Wilkie, and handed over the message. It was the first time
in years that Wilkie had been awed in the presence of anybody.
"Thank you," said Doc Savage.
Wilkie found himself retreating, although he had intended to hang around and strike up a conversation
with this remarkable man. The tone of those two words had impelled him to depart. At the same time, he
found himself feeling very friendly toward the metallic giant.
It was eerie, the things the bronze man's voice could do.
Wilkie was almost out of the observation car when another weird thing happened. An uncanny sound
reached his ears.
He came to an abrupt stop. His face was blank. Absently, he felt of his ears. The sound was so curious
that he half suspected it might be a product of his imagination. The note seemed to be coming from no
particular spot, but from every where.
It was low, mellow, and trilling, that sound-like the song of some strange feathered denizen of the jungle,
or the sound of a wind crawling through a leafless wilderness. It ran up and down the musical scale,
having no tune, yet melodious. Then it ended.
Wilkie did not feel awed by the sound. Rather, there was something inspiring about it.
As he went on, Wilkie felt as if he had just taken a drink of fine old liquor. The trilling sound had that kind
of an effect.
Chapter 2. THE TRAIN WEREWOLF
THE sound Wilkie had heard was part of Doc Savage. It was a small, unconscious thing which he did in
moments of intense concentration, or when he was surprised. Often when Doc made the sound, he was
unaware of doing so.
Reading the text of the telegram had caused the tiny, weird note to come into being.
Leaving his chair, Doc strode for the observation platform on the rear of the coach.
There were other passengers. These were amazed by the bronze man's appearance - so much so that
they forgot their manners and frankly stared.
A stout, elderly man with a slightly swarthy face gazed at the bronze giant's hands. Enormous, supple
tendons showed those hands contained incredible strength. The hands seemed to mesmerize the swarthy
man.
A ravishingly pretty dark-haired girl sat beside the elderly man. Her eyes were large and limpid, and her
lips a most inviting rosebud. She looked very fresh and crisp, so impeccable, in fact, that it was obvious
she had not been on the train long. Even the neatest of individuals soon show the effects of traveling.
These two were clearly father and daughter.
The attractive young woman seemed intrigued, not by the bronze man's undeniable physical strength, but
by the fact that he was one of the handsomest fellows she had ever seen.
Doc Savage went on, seeming not to notice the pair.
Frowning, the elderly man dropped a hand on his daughter's arm.
"Quila aIM!" he ejaculated severely in Spanish. "For shame! You were smiling at that man, Cere."
The enchanting Cere colored in confusion. She had smiled, although she had not meant to.
"Eso es espantoso!" she laughed. "It is dreadful! Thank goodness, he did not see me. He would have
thought me very forward."
"Si, Si," her parent agreed disapprovingly.
Father and daughter were staring after the receding bronze man when a low voice sounded at their side.
A man had joined them silently. This individual was tall and slenderly athletic. His face was more than
handsome. It was pretty. It was almost a girl's face. His age was somewhere around thirty-five. He had
hard eyes.
"I trust you are retaining your courage, senorita," he said fawningly. He bowed to her father. "You also,
Senor Corto Oveja."
"You need have no fear of our nerve, El Rabanos," said Cere in excellent English. "Instead of discussing
our troubles, we were remarking on the striking qualities of the bronze man who just passed. Do you
happen to know his name?"
The girl-faced El Rabanos leaned close to breathe: "Not so loud, senorita!"
A close observer could have noted that the pretty senorita had suddenly begun turning pale. "You mean -
"
"The bronze man is Doc Savage," said El Rabanos.
Senor Corto Oveja came up rigid in his chair. "So that is the man - the fiend who is to kill us! Dios mio!"
"Si, si!" muttered El Rabanos. "We must watch this Doc Savage. From him, our very lives are in
danger."
"And his appearance made such a good impression," Cere murmured forlornly.
DOC SAVAGE, unaware of the bombshell his passage had exploded, stepped out on the observation
platform.
One man rode there. The outstanding thing about this fellow was his gigantic hands. Each of these was
composed of more than a quart of bone and gristle, sheathed in hide that resembled rusted sheet iron.
The man was very big - over six feet, and weighing fully two hundred and fifty pounds - but the size of his
hands made the rest of him seem dwarfed.
He had a long, Puritanical face, which bore an expression of great gloom. He looked like a man on his
way to a funeral.
"Have a look, Renny," said Doc Savage, and extended the telegram.
The big-fisted man was Colonel John Renwick, known in many parts of the globe for his
accomplishments as an engineer. Also, he was noted for a playful habit of knocking panels out of doors
with his incredible fists. With either fist, he boasted, he could vanquish the stoutest wooden door.
Renny's funeral-going expression was the one he habitually wore when at peace with the world.
Renny was one of a group of five singular men who were Doc Savage's helpers.
The telegram was addressed to Doc Savage, care of the train, and read:
JUST RECEIVED YOUR WIRE ADVISING YOU ARE PAYING ME A VISIT STOP WISH TO
IN- FORM YOU I HAVE NO USE FOR REST OF SAVAGE FAMILY STOP DO NOT WISH
YOUR COMPANY STOP WOULD BE DELIGHTED TO HAVE YOU STAY AWAY
ALEX SAVAGE
Renny had a pet expression which be used on all occasions calling for vehemence. He employed it now.
"Holy cow!" he exploded.
"Those are something near my own sentiments," Doc Savage agreed.
"Dang it!" Renny's voice was something like the roaring of an angry animal in a cave. "What if he don't
want our company? The crowd of us weren't going to drop in and sponge off him! We were going to do
some fishing and hunting, and merely pay him a visit as a courtesy. If he don't want us, we won't bother
him. But I'll be blasted if that will keep us from our vacation!"
"Alex Savage owns a large stretch of land along the coast," Doc pointed out. "It has the reputation of
being the best spot in Canada for hunting and fishing."
Renny groaned thunderously. "A fine gesture of welcome! Say, Doc, don't this Alex Savage know you?"
"Not personally," Doc replied. "He is an uncle. I have never met either him or his daughter."
"Daughter?"
"An only child, I understand. Her name is Patricia. Age about eighteen."
Renny tapped his huge fists together. This made a sound remindful of two flint boulders colliding with
each other.
"If your uncle and cousin don't want us, Doc, I reckon we'll go somewhere else," he said gloomily.
"Where's the map? I'll try to find another place where there's good fishing."
"Better postpone that, Renny," Doc said dryly.
"Huh?
'There's something very suspicious about this message," Doc Savage informed him.
PUZZLED and wondering, big-fisted Renny followed his giant bronze chief back through the observation
car. Renny's relation to Doc Savage was unusual. He willingly carried out Doc's smallest order. Yet
Renny received not one penny of salary
Renny, in fact, was considerably more than a millionaire in his own right. His skill as an engineer had
made into a fortune. He had, in a sense, retired - retired to follow the trail of what he liked above all else,
adventure. Peril and excitement were the spice of his life.
Peril, excitement, and adventure were the bonds which cemented him to Doc Savage. Doc seemed
always to walk amid these things. Each minute of his life was one of danger.
For Doc Savage had a strange purpose in life, a creed to which his existence was dedicated. That creed
was to go here and there, to the far corners of the earth, helping those in need of help, punishing those
who needed punishment.
Doc had been trained for this purpose from the cradle.
The other four aides of the bronze man, like Renny, were bound to him by a love of adventure. And, like
Renny, they were masters of some profession.
One was an electrical wizard, one a world-renowned chemist, another a great geologist and
archaeologist, and the fourth, one of the most astute lawyers Harvard had ever turned out.
Trouble-busting was the life purpose of Doc and his five aides. Their exploits had pushed their fame to
the ends of the earth. Doc, mighty man of bronze, was by way of becoming a legend - a specter of terror
where evil-doers were concerned.
Doc Savage entered his drawing-room, Renny at his heels. The room was stacked with bags and many
metal boxes equipped with carrying straps.
Doc opened one of the boxes. A compact radio transmitter and receiver came to light. Corded fingers
moving with deftness, Doc manipulated the controls. The set was fitted with a "bug" - a mechanical key
for rapid transmission.
"What station are you callin', Doc?" Renny queried.
"There is a Royal Canadian Mounted Police stttion in the railroad town nearest Alex Savage's home,"
Doc ex plalned. "I'm trying to raise them."
Renny heard this without batting an eye. That Doc should know there was a Mounted station at the town,
and have the call letters at his finger tips, did not impress Renny as anything out of the ordinary. Doc
Savage had a fabulous fund of information of all kinds.
Doc contacted the Mounted station, and made known his identity.
"At your service, Mr. Savage," was the reply to this.
Renny heard this come from the ear phones. He was not surprised. This was not the only great police
system which cooperated fully with Doc Savage.
"I received a telegram which pretends to have been sent from your town by Alex Savage," Doc
transmitted. "Will you check up and see if it was sent' please?"
There followed fully five minutes of silence, while the distant Mounted operator made inquiries.
"No such message was sent from here," came back the report.
Doc wirelessed his thanks, then replaced the radio set in its case.
"You've got one guess about that telegram," he told Renny.
"It was a fake!" Renny thumped. "But, Doc, what in blazes made you suspicious?"
"The message was addressed care of this train," Doc explained. "Our earlier message to Alex Savage
said nothing about what train we would be on."
DOC Savage, Renny lumbering at his side, now sought out Wilkie, the conductor.
Wilkie was absorbed in the magazine which held the feature story about Doc Savage.
"How soon will we reach a point from which I can send a telegram?" Doc inquired.
Wilkie swallowed twice before he could answer. What he had been reading had tended to increase his
awe of this bronze man.
"We pass a little station in a few minutes," he replied. "We don't stop, but I can clip it to an order hoop,
and get it to the telegrapher as we go past."
"Good!" Doc proceeded to write out a message. It was addressed to Alex Savage:
SOMETHING STRANGE GOING ON STOP DID YOU GET MY TELEGRAM ADVISING
THAT MY- SELF AND FIVE FRIENDS PLANNING SPEND FISHING AND HUNTING
VACATION YOUR VIC- NITY STOP DID YOU WIRE US NOT TO COME STOP PLEASE
ADVISE IMMEDIATELY DOC SAVAGE
Folding this, Doc gave it to the conductor.
"I don't know what it will cost," Wilkie said.
"This should more than cover it." Doc passed over a large Canadian five dollar bill. "Keep the change for
your trouble."
"I couldn't do that," Wilkie said hastily. "I'll deadhead the message for you, Mr. Savage. It won't cost a
thing."
Wilkie was outdoing himself to please the bronze man. Doc seemed faintly puzzled for a moment. Then
he caught sight of the magazine article which Wilkie had been reading. His inscrutable, metallic features
did not change. but after a moment he indicated the periodical.
"The chap who wrote that had a lot of imagination," he said dryly.
Doc and Renny turned away from the admiring conductor. They almost bumped into two swarthy men
and a beautiful, dark-haired girl. These were Senor Corto Oveja, his daughter Cere, and the girl-faced El
Rabanos.
The three looked steadily away from Doc and Renny. They had been standing there eavesdropping as
Doc gave Wilkie his message. But they did not want the bronze giant to know that.
Doc and Renny went on up the car.
"A peach!" Renny breathed when they were in the next car.
"What?" said Doc
"The girl with those two swarthy men," Renny murmured. "Holy cow! Was she a looker!"
"You mean the three who were spying on us as we gave the conductor that message?" Doc queried
softly.
Renny gulped: "They were spying on us?'
"They were."
Senor Corto Oveja, Cere, and El Rabanos would have been surprised, had they overheard this
statement. They had not imagined they had been discovered. They did not know that few things
happening around Doc escaped his attention.
RENNY scowled and banged his knuckles together. "What do you make of this, Doc?.'
"Somebody wants to keep us away from Alex Savage's place, and the beautiful senorita and her two
dark com plexioned companions are very interested in us," Doc summarized.
"But what's at the bottom of it?"
摘要：

BRANDOFTHEWEREWOLFADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?Chapter1.THESTRANGEMESSAGE?Chapter2.THETRAINWEREWOLF?Chapter3.WARNINGOFTHEWEREWOLF?Chapter4.DEADMAN?Chapter5.THEWEREWOLFCRIES?Chapter6.SQUAREWHITEDEATH?Chapter7.STRANGEATTACKERS?Chapte...

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