"Robeson, Kenneth - Doc Savage 1938 02 - The Mountain Monster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

John Alden grabbed the figure by the shoulders, shook violently. "Buck! Buck!
Snap out of it!"
Of all things that happened that night, what occurred next was strangest to John
Alden.
Buck Dixon suddenly scrambled to his feet. His face underwent an amazing
transformation. The fear and panic left it. It set in its usual hard,
self-reliant lines.
"What are you doing out here with that gun in your hands?" Buck Dixon rumbled.
Only faint embarrassment was in his voice. He grabbed John Alden by an arm,
propelled him toward the cabin.
"Come on, we’d better get under cover before you take your death of cold."
John Alden gasped. He sniffed the air, hesitated. His eyes held an unbelieving,
baffled look. That strange, overpowering odor had vanished. The air was clean
and pure.

JOHN ALDEN and Buck Dixon did not tell the Arcadian colonists what had happened.
In fact, John Alden had difficulty in making his stocky partner admit the next
day that anything out of the way had occurred.
Outside, the sun was shining. The events of the night did seem improbable to
John Alden, too. But he remembered the queer sounds he had heard.
A harried look came to Buck Dixon’s face when the tall engineer told of those
sounds. His hands trembled.
"It was huge, with enormous legs. A terrible smell came from it. It came right
toward me. I thought I was a goner. Then it leaped over the trees," he
whispered.
"There should be tracks," John Alden said.
John Alden was right. They found tracks!
The tracks were curious. Both Dixon and Alden were woodsmen. They knew how to
read signs. But they could not identify the marks they found.
Back-tracking, they found the first marks near the mountains, three miles away.
The tracks came almost in a straight line toward the cabin. They were widely
spaced, sometimes as much as fifty yards apart.
And they were the marks of an eight-legged beast!
The marks disappeared just before the line of trees that surrounded John Alden’s
land. They did not reappear on the opposite side.
A frown creased Buck Dixon’s square face. He shivered, despite the heat.
"I think we’re up against something too big for us, something I don’t want to go
up against. I’m scared," he said at last. "But there’s a man I’ve heard of who
could figure out the answers for us. I think we’d better go to him."
"And who is that?"
"Doc Savage," said Buck Dixon, and there was awe in his voice.
Doc Savage! The bronze giant, who, with his five aides, had become world famous,
whose name was as well known in the far regions of China and the jungles of
Africa, as in the skyscraper district of New York.
There were stories of Doc Savage’s almost incredible strength; of his amazing
scientific discoveries and dangerous exploits. Doc Savage had dedicated his life
to aiding those faced by dangers with which they could not cope. His name
brought fear to those who sought to prey upon the unsuspecting. His name was
praised by thousands he had saved.
John Alden paused. A dozen pictures flashed to his mind; his memory recalled a