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which was a handy magnifying glass. He was so tall he seemed to tower seven feet high, but some of that was skeletal illusion.
    Renny Renwick was another giant, but his size consisted of mass, like a well-muscled mastodon, minus the shaggy coat. He was the civil engineer of the group, and looked the part. A forbidding expression dragged down his countenance, which was perpetually gloomy of cast. Strangely, this was the towering engineer’s way of smiling. At the ends of his wrists hung a pair of fists as large as the wooden mallets seen at carnival side shows for the purpose of displaying a man’s strength by ringing a bell.
    Last was Long Tom Roberts. In his own way, he looked as unhealthy as skeletal Johnny—but going in the opposite direction. Slender, his complexion resembling a cellar-dwelling mushroom, Long Tom was the smallest of Doc’s men. He made up for his lack of stature by packing around a temper which, when unleashed, was as formidable as Monk’s hairy arms, or Renny’s gigantic fists. Owing to this, the others left Long Tom strictly alone when he was riled. He was the electrical engineer of Doc’s group, and the long hours he spent in his windowless cellar workshop explained his expertise and his pale skin alike.
    Doc Savage began examining the tomahawk, which he had taken from Johnny the archeologist.
    Doc’s flake-gold eyes regarded it intently for almost a minute as he turned it over in his metallic hands, hefted it, judging its workmanship as well as its practicality.
    The war axe was carved from granite and mounted on a hickory shaft less than two feet long. This was hollow and at the poll was a bowl receptacle for inserting tobacco.
    “They would smoke tobacco from the lower end,” said Johnny.
    Doc nodded. “There is dried blood on the edge,” he said.
    “Not mine,” insisted Renny.
    “Maybe someone should part your hair,” muttered Monk. “Indians didn’t take the entire scalp, just a patch at the top to show that they had beaten a foe. Maybe you got some hair missin’.”
    Momentarily alarmed, Renny reached up with one big paw and felt of the crown of his skull. He encountered hair that had been smeared down with Pomade. No raw skin or moist spot.
    Long face gloomy, Renny took an annoyed swipe at the hairy chemist. “Think you’re funny, huh?”
    Monk bounced out of the way. “It never hurts to check,” he grinned.
    Suddenly, a peculiar sound started up in the night.
    HAD these Missouri woods harbored a bird combining the clear cry of the giant Roc out of the Arabian Nights with the call of a tiny tropical songster, such a hybrid creature might have authored the sound that filled the night. It was a mellow trilling, amazing to hear. It adhered to no tune, but was possessed of a weirdly haunting melody.
    This was a sound Doc Savage made when his emotions were jarred. Sometimes it denoted puzzlement, or surprise, or other strong feelings. Here, it marked a mix of fascinated wonder.
    The sound soon ebbed into nothingness.
    Ham looked intrigued. “What’s say, Doc?”
    “This tomahawk is authentic.”
    “So? A lot of Indian artifacts are.”
    Doc said, “For this tomahawk to survive into the Twentieth Century in this condition would mean that shortly after manufacture it had been stored in a weatherproof place, unused, for over one hundred years.”
    “I have never held a finer specimen,” inserted Johnny the archeologist. “But I, too, cannot account for its excellent condition.”
    “Now what?” asked Monk, losing interest in the tomahawk.
    “Investigate the vanishing Victorian,” replied Doc.
    They started off, using their flashlights to illuminate the way. The myriad beams made weird shadows crawl in the underbrush, threw great trees into sharp relief, gave everything the uncanny illusion of moving, as if they were wending their way through an enchanted forest out of a storybook.
    “Our lights make us fair targets for trouble,” Ham was saying.
    Doc Savage offered no