"029 (B012) - The Quest of Qui (1935-07) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Johnny burrowed deeper. Snow among the boulders, he discovered, ranged from six to fifteen feet in depth. It was soft, cold enough to be dry.



The metal box which Johnny carried was heavy. He used it to ram through the snow. That pleased him. He could make fair progress.



He heard the plane come back, picked out the ratty sounds which rifle slugs made running around from rock to rock in the snow drifts. Then came a great roar and the earth shimmied, as more dynamite was dumped out of the other plane.



Johnny kept going. Conditions were perfect for what he was doing. He encountered a rock, and worked around that. His flying suit was full of snow. So were his ears, nostrils. He stopped finally and listened.



The plane motor had dropped in volume of noise. At first, he thought it was far away. Then it blasted out. A grating and rasping, quite distinct, came through the snow. The ship had landed.



They would have trouble finding him, Johnny decided grimly. Why were they trying to kill him? Because he had found the wounded man, obviously. But what was behind their action? What were they up to? And could he, Johnny, finally escape? He thought so. But just in case, there was a precaution he could take.



Johnny worked himself from side to side in the snow, and made a small cave. There was not much light, but he did not need much. He opened the box. Some snow fell in. He brushed it out carefully.



The box held a radio outfit which transmitted and received on an extremely short-wave length. Despite its compactness, the apparatus had a range, under favorable conditions, of a good many hundreds of miles.



Johnny turned a switch. A generator, operated by a very sturdy, light storage battery, made some little noise. He fumbled with the microphone and head-set.



He set the dials to the wave length employed by Doc Savage and his men in their communications.



Then he heard about the most unpleasant sound possible under the circumstances. Dogs barking! The other men had landed their plane. They had unloaded dogs, probably sled dogs.



Johnny let out a long word expressive of disgust. The dogs would smell him out like a partridge under the snow.