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

Chapter 3



KILLERS ALL





NO ONE had ever honestly believed Johnny did not have an agile mind, and he used it now. He thought swiftly. His first conclusion was that it was just as well if these men seeking his life did not know about the radio transmitter and receiver. They would be certain to destroy that link with civilization.



Johnny, in common with some other scholarly men, was a bit absent-minded, however. When he left the radio set and burrowed away hurriedly under the snow, he overlooked something he might have done had he thought of it.



Johnny forgot to turn the radio transmitter off.



Men were shouting. They sounded angry. Dogs were barking, and they sounded joyful, as if they had been cooped up on the plane for some time.



Johnny found himself in snow which was particularly dark, decided that that meant the drift was deep and he was near the bottom, and concluded to lie still. The dogs at least would not hear him then. He might even get away entirely.



After he had stopped, Johnny heard a faint whine which puzzled him. It was almost two minutes before he abruptly remembered he had forgotten to turn off the radio, and this must be the generator he was hearing. It would run for hours. The generator, delivering high voltage, drew little current, and the special storage battery had a high ampere-hour capacity.



During the next few seconds, Johnny entertained ideas of burrowing back and turning the radio off, but put that out of his mind as being too risky. They might not hear it, anyway.



Johnny grinned once, but not joyfully. It was the kind of a grin put on by a man who has just been run over by a car and is too dazed to be sure how badly he is hurt, and Johnny employed the grin because he had thought of how unbelievable his present position was.



A Viking dragon ship filled with bearded freebooters had captured a yacht off Long Island, and that was somehow connected with a plane load of men who were now trying to kill Johnny. There was also something named Qui, of which no man had known for twelve hundred years. It did not quite make sense. Johnny had encountered some strange, unbelievable and mysterious things during his association with Doc Savage, but this one, thus far, made less sense than