Kenneth Robeson - The Polar Treasure

She managed a faint, trembling smile. "The Eskimos treated us wonderfully. They thought we were good white spirits who had brought them a great supply of wood and iron, in the shape of the liner. They looked upon myself and my mother as white goddesses, and treated us as such — but refused to let us leave. In a way, we were prisoners. Then, a few days ago — the white men came!"

"Oh, oh!" Doc interjected. "I begin to see the light."

"These men were part of the mutineer crew," Roxey Vail said. "Keelhaul de Rosa was in command. They came in a plane. They visited this wrecked liner. After that, they seemed very angry."

"Imagine their mortification" — Doc chuckled — "when they found the treasure gone!"

"They gave the Eskimos liquor," Roxey Vail went on. "And they gave them worse stuff, something that made them madmen — a white powder!"

"Dope — the rats!" Doc growled.

"My mother and I became frightened," said the girl. "We retreated to a tiny hideaway we had prepared against just such an emergency. None of the Eskimos know where it is.

"An hour or so ago, I came to the liner. We needed food. There are supplies still aboard, stuff preserved by the intense cold.

"I heard the Eskimos come aboard. I spied on them. They had a white man prisoner. A white man with hair like cotton. There was something strange about this man. It was as though I had seen him before."

"You were very small when you were marooned here, Weren't you?" Doc inquired softly.

"Yes. Only a few years old. Anyway, the Eskimos talked of killing this white-haired man. I do not quite understand why, but it filled me with such horror I went completely mad. I screamed. Then you — you came."

"I heard your scream." Doc eyed her steadily. Then he spoke again.

"The white-haired man was your father," he said.

Without a sound, Roxey Vail passed out. Doc caught her.

AS HE stood there, with the soft, limp form of the exquisitely beautiful girl in his arm, Doc wondered if it could have been the fact that white-haired Victor Vail had been murdered which had caused her swoon. She was not the type of young woman, from what he had seen of her, who fainted easily.

He heard the search of the Eskimos drawing near. They did not have sense enough to hunt quietly. Or perhaps they wanted to flush him out like a wild animal, so he wouldn't be in their midst before they knew it.

Doc quitted the strong room. He sped down a passage, bearing the unconscious girl in his arms. He was soundless as a wraith. He came to a large clothes hamper. It was in perfect shape. It still held some crumpled garments.

Doc dumped the clothes out. The hamper held Roxey Vail nicely as the big bronze man lowered her into it. He closed the lid. The hamper was of open wickerwood. It would conceal her, yet she could breathe through it.

Directly toward the oncoming Innuits, Doc strode.

His hand drew a small case from inside his parka. With the contents of this, he made his preparations.

He stepped into a cabin and waited.

The first Eskimo passed. Like a striking serpent, Doc's bronze hand darted from the cabin door. His finger tips barely stroked the greasy cheek of the Innuit. Yet the man instantly fell on his face!

Doc flashed out of the cabin. His fingers touched the bare skin of a second Eskimo, another — another. He got five of them before the fat fellows could show anything like action.

All five men who felt Doc's eerie touch seemed to go suddenly to sleep on their feet.

It was the same brand of magic Doc had used on the gangsters in New York City.

Murderous Eskimo with his harpoon, or pasty-cheeked New York rat, with his fists full of high-power automatics — both are the same breed. Doc's magic worked in the same fashion.

The Innuits saw their fellows toppling mysteriously. They realized the very touch of this mighty bronze man was disastrous. They forgot all about fighting. They fled.

Ignominiously, they piled out on deck. Rigging tripped them. After the fashion of superstitious souls, the instant they turned their back on danger, their peril seemed to grow indescribably greater. They were like scared boys running from a graveyard at night — each jump made them want to go faster.

Two even committed unwilling suicide by leaping over the rail of the lost liner to the hard glacier far below.

In a matter of minutes, the last Innuit was sucked away into the screaming blizzard.

The lost liner Oceanic lay like something that had died.

Wind still boomed and squealed in the forest of ice-coated, collapsed rigging, it was true. The sand-hard snow still made a billion tiny tinklings as the gale shotted it against the derelict hulk. But gone were the uncanny whisperings and shufflings which had been so unnerving.

Doc Savage went below, moving silently, as had become his habit when he trod the trails of danger. His flashlight beam dabbed everywhere. Sharp, missing nothing, his golden eye took stock of his surroundings. He was seeing everything, yet speeding along at a pace that for another man would have been a lung-tearing sprint.

A squarish, thick-walled little bottle chanced to meet his gaze. He did not pick it up. Yet the printing on the label yielded to his near-telescopic scrutiny.

It was a perfume bottle. Two more like it reposed a bit farther down the passage.

Here was the explanation of the flowery odor of the Eskimos which had so baffled description. To the characteristic stench of blubber, perspiration and plain filth which accompanied them, they had added perfume. The whole had been an effluvium which was unique.

Doc opened the clothes hamper where he had left unconscious Roxey Vail.

Emptiness stared at him.

Doc dropped to a knee. His flashlight beam narrowed, becoming intensely brilliant. The luminance spurted across the carpet on the passage floor. This looked as though it had been laid down yesterday. But the years had taken the springiness out of the nap, so that it would retain footprints.

The girl had gone forward-alone. This told Doc some of the Eskimos had not remained behind and seized her.

"Roxey!" he called.

Doc's shout penetrated the caterwauling of the blizzard in surprising fashion. A sound expert could have explained why. It is well known that certain horn tones, not especially loud, will carry through the noise of a factory better than any others. Doc, because of the perfect control he exercised over his vocal cords, could pitch his voice so as to waft through the blizzard in a manner nearly uncanny.

"Here!" came the girl's faint voice. "I'm hunting my father!"

Doc hurried to her. She was pale. Terror lay like a garish mask on her exquisite features.

"My father — they took him with them!" she said in a small, tight voice.

"They didn't have him when they fled a moment ago," Doc assured her. "I watched closely."

Her terror gave way to amazement.

"They fled?" she murmured wonderingly. "Why?"

Doc neglected to answer. How he produced that mysterious unconsciousness with his mere touch was a secret known only to himself and his five friends.

But no. Doc shivered. His five friends had met their end in the burning plane. So the secret was now known to but one living man — Doc Savage himself.

"The Eskimos must have removed your father before they attacked me," Doc told Roxey Vail.

He wheeled quickly away. The glow of his flashlight reflected off the paneling of the lost liner, and made his bronze form seem even more gigantic than it was. Fierce little lights played in his golden eyes.

"Where are you going?" questioned his entrancing companion.

"To get Victor Vail," Doc replied grimly. "They took him away, and that shows he was alive. No doubt they took him to Keelhaul de Rosa."