"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 018 - The Squeaking Goblin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

came to rest upon a remarkable figure.

There was a ghostly quality about the form outlined by the flash, coming, perhaps, from the dead, immobile
grayness of the face. The sunken holes where the eyes should have been, the rigidity of the mouth, gave it a
corpselike aspect.

Most striking was the garb of the figure, for the clothing was that of a frontiersman of another century.
Moccasins were of beaded deerskin; the trousers were buckskin, the blouse of doe, beaded and fringed. A
powder horn was slung over a shoulder. A belt supported bullet pouch and a sheath containing a long-bladed
knife.

Standing high like the headgear of a Cossack, lending an unnatural height to the strange apparition, was a
coonskin cap, the tail dangling down behind.

Notable also was the rifle the figure carried. A muzzle-loader, it had an extraordinary barrel length, the barrel
being thick, heavy. The weapon was obviously handmade, a rare piece.

Hardly had the flashlight outlined this fantastic form when the rifleman gave a great leap and vanished behind
the boulder with a speed which defied the eye.

Half a dozen pistol and rifle slugs screamed through the space he had vacated, the lead being fired by the
two men on the yacht and by the other men around the cove edge.

"Git that thar cuss!" Tige bawled from the yacht deck.

More flashlights sprayed radiance. The beams darted, searching. With its confusion of lights, the rugged cove
shore became eerie in aspect. Weapons ready, the men advanced.

The rock masses through which they worked made it difficult to light every recess, so they went slowly and
kept the white funnels of luminance prowling. The first excited shouts subsided, and their manners became
grim, determined, deadly.

"Hit’s a crafty critter!" Tige howled from the yacht. "Take a heap a’ care!"

One of the men, advancing on the spot where the weird figure in ancient frontiersman’s garb had been seen,
swore softly.

"Listen to that hill-billy!" he grunted. "He’s talkin’ like that guy in the fur cap ain’t human."

A circle of glaring flash beams, the men closed upon the spot where the deerskin-clad figure had stood. They
fanned their lights, staring, and a few hands quivered with tension that arose from expected action. But after a
few seconds the searchers swore softly in a low-voiced and dazed manner.

There was no trace of the weird figure in the coonskin cap.



WHAT’S a-happenin’?" Tige yelled. "Did that thar thing git away?"

Every man on the shore noticed that Tige was not speaking of the deerskin-garbed figure as if it were human,