=JeromeCoffern was chief chemist for the =Mammoth concern. He was also considered one of the most learned industrial scientists in the World. The =MammothManufacturingCompany paid =JeromeCoffern a larger salary than was received by the president of the corporation. It was =JeromeCoffern's great brain which gave the =Mammoth concern the jump on all its competitors. =JeromeCoffern plucked back a sleeve to eye a watch on his right wrist. This watch was later to identify the grisly right hand and forearm as =Coffern's. "I wonder how many of you gentlemen have heard of =ClarkSavage," he inquired? Surprise kept the other chemists silent a moment. Then one spoke up. "I recall that a man by the name of =ClarkSavage recently did some remarkable work along lines of ultimate organic analysis," he said. "His findings were so advanced in part as to be somewhat bewildering. Some points about Chemistry that had been generally accepted as facts were proven wrong by =ClarkSavage." =JeromeCoffern nodded delightedly, rubbing his rather bony hands. "That is correct," he declared. "I am proud to point to myself as one of the few chemists to realize =DocSavages findings are possibly the most important of our generation." At this juncture, another chemist gave an appreciable start. "=DocSavage," he ejaculated! "Say, isn't that the man who some weeks ago turned over to the surgical profession a new and vastly improved method of performing delicate brain operations?" "That is the same =DocSavage, although his birth name was =Clark." Jerome Coffern’s none-too-ample chest seemed about to burst with pride. Seized with an idea, =Doc grasped a pike and a cutlass. There was nothing fake about the weapons. They were genuine heavy steel. The cutlass was razor keen. =Doc retraced his route. He was in time to see one of his ratty quarry peering into the hatch. The villainous fellow got a glimpse of =Docs bronze form. He fired his revolver. But =Doc had moved. The bullet upset an image of a whiskered pirate. An instant later, the pike whizzed from =Docs long arm. The steel-shod shaft found accurate lodgment in the gun fiend's brain. The man toppled headlong into the hold. Crashing to the floor, his body sent a gruesome papier-mache head bouncing across the planks. While the grisly head still rolled, =Doc bounded to a spot below the hatch. Faint noises on the deck had reached his keen ears. One or more of the others were near the hatch. Suddenly a thin claw shoved a revolver over the hatch lip. The gun exploded repeatedly, driving random bullets to various parts of the hold. =Docs powerful form floated up from the floor. The razor-edged cutlass swished. The hand that held the revolver seemed to jump off the arm to which it belonged. It was completely amputated! The maimed wretch shrieked! He fell to the deck. With a second leap, =Doc caught the hatch rim with his left hand. The by-no-means-easy feat of flipping his heavy form outside with one hand, he accomplished easily. The hand-less man groveled on the deck. "Gabe=Yuder" he muttered! "I wonder could he be the man? He was an unsavory chap. I have no idea what became of him after our return. He remained in =NewZealand, intending to return here later." "Will you describe =GabeYuder?" Around and around =Bittman's finger flew the scalpel. He spoke in clipped sentences, giving an excellent description. "=GabeYuder was a young man, under 30. He was robust, an athletic type. He had a red face. His mouth was big. The lower lip was cleft by a knife scar. His eyes were always bloodshot. They were a pale gray. They reminded you of a snake's undersides. His hair was sandy, a sort of mongrel color. "=Yuder had a loud, coarse voice. He had an overbearing manner. His knuckles were scarred from knocking people about. He would strike a native at the slightest provocation. And he was a combination of chemist and electrical engineer by trade. He went along with us to prospect for petroleum." "He does sound rather villainous," =Doc admitted. "Can you tell me anything about this Smoke of Eternity?" "The Smoke of Eternity? What is that," queried =Bittman, looking puzzled? =Doc debated. There was no reason why he should not tell =Bittman of the terrible dissolving compound that had destroyed =JeromeCoffern. Besides, =Bittman had been friend to Doc's father. "I'm afraid, brothers, that =Kar has got his hands on =Monk," =DocSavage said slowly. "Nothing less could have kept the big ape from showing up here," agreed =Ham, the waspish quick-thinking lawyer. He made an angry, baffled gesture with his innocent-looking black sword-cane. Below the =86th floor window of the skyscraper office, the inspiring panorama of =NewYorkCity spread. They were beautiful, impressive things -- those gigantic, gleaming spires of office buildings. From that height, automobiles on the street looked like little, sluggish bugs moving along. =Doc lifted a bronze hand. He got instant attention. =Ham, =Renny, =LongTom, and =Johnny knew this signal meant =Doc was about to start his campaign of action. To the electrical wizard =LongTom came the first commands. =Doc gave =LongTom the address of that 10th house in a row of dwellings that were all alike. He told the exact secret wall recess. "I want you to trace that phone wire," =Doc explained. "It was not installed by the regular telephone company. =Kar must have put it in himself. It leads to some secret lair of =Kar's. I want you to follow it to that lair." "Sure," said =LongTom. "I'll use a ." "I know what you'll use," =Doc interposed. "The apparatus is right here in my Laboratory. You can find it." Here was a long, narrow court. The place was untidy. Rickety old wooden fences marked off backyards hardly larger than good-sized bedspreads. Rusty clotheslines draped like old cobwebs. The court resembled little else than a brick-walled pit. At the =RiversideDrive end, the rear wall of a great apartment house towered many stories. At the opposite end was a lesser building. And on either side, the shabby sterns of old tenements buttressed each other solidly. Evening was near. The hulking buildings threw shadows into the pit of a court. =Doc moved along the court, toward =RiversideDrive. His sharp eyes soon located the secret phone wires. These followed the chinks between bricks for the most part. They had been coated with a paint the exact color of the brickwork. They reached the wall of the immensely larger building which fronted =RiversideDrive. Turning here, the thin, hardly-visible strands traced along the rear of the structure. At one point, a loop abruptly dangled out. It was a very small loop. =Doc pointed at this. "Notice anything peculiar about that?" =LongTom stared. "The insulation is gone at that point," he ejaculated. "The naked copper of the wires shows!" "Exactly. Note also that there are many windows directly above the spot." Few vehicles other than an occasional milk wagon moved on the streets. That was lucky. The headlong pace the pursuit set allowed for no niceties of traffic dodging. Up =Broadway they thundered, leaving a trail of bleating police whistles behind. =Renny's pee-wee limousine proved a surprise. It ran like a racer. And =Renny was something of a =BarneyOldfield at the wheel. The fleeing cab was slowly, steadily overhauled. Desperate, the machine dodged and doubled back. But it only lost ground. Finally, the taxi veered over to =RiversideDrive, then off the Drive and down a rutty workroad. It was the same road followed by the gold truck that =DocSavage had trailed. =Renny steered his machine in pursuit. Behind them, a police squad car caterwauled along the Drive but missed seeing them. It wandered off, wrapped in the bedlam of its own siren, vainly searching for the 2 automobiles which had used the early morning streets of =NewYork for a race track. The fleeing thug drove almost to the tumble-down pier where lay anchored the =JollyRoger. He hopped out, kept behind the taxi, and scuttled for the pirate vessel. A pistol flamed desperately from his hand as he caught sight of =Renny's little sedan bucking down the rutty road! The murk was thick so he missed. The great cone projected high enough above the southern seas that they sighted it while still more than a hundred miles distant. The air was clear and the Sun flamed with a scintillant revelry. Yet above the giant crater -- and obviously crawling out of its interior -- lurked masses of cloud. "The dope I got from that pilot was right," =Johnny declared, quickly removing his glasses with the magnifying lens to the left side so he could peer through high-magnification binoculars! "Note the steam which always forms a blanket above the crater." "Strange lookin' place," =Monk muttered, his little eyes taking in =ThunderIsland. "Not so 'strange'," =Johnny corrected. "Steam-filled volcanic craters are not so uncommon in this part of the World. It is a region of active craters. There is, for instance, =Ngauruhoe -- a cone in =NewZealand which emits steam and vapor incessantly. And for further example of unusual Earth activity, take the great region of geysers -- strange lakes of boiling mud and hot springs -- which is also in =NewZealand. Like the phenomena in the =YellowstonePark in the =UnitedStates, this region ." "You can serve that geology lecture with our supper," snorted =Monk! "What I meant was the shape of that cone. Notice how steep it gets toward the top? Man alive! It’s a thousand feet straight up-and-down in more than one spot!" "The cone rim is inaccessible," said =Johnny, peevishly. "You mean nobody has ever climbed up there and looked over?" "I believe that is what 'inaccessible' means." While =Doc and his friends faced the dangers of this weird place the first night, =Renny -- lost from the others -- had difficulties of his own. When =Renny's parachute lowered him to the spongy floor of the vast crater, he landed in the midst of such a scene as his wildest nightmares had never produced. He dropped squarely into the fight which was heard from the air! This was a ferocious battle between the same tyrannosaurus which had pursued =Doc and the others and a 3-horned rhinoceros of a monster. =Renny's parachute spilled over the revolting face of the terrible Tyrannosaurus. =Renny instantly squirmed out of the 'chute harness and dropped to the cushion-like earth. Pitching about like a tall house caught in a tornado, the Tyrannosaurus soon got the silken folds out of its face. But =Renny had no time to witness that. The other beast came thundering straight for him! The iron-fisted engineer had inspected the pictures of a few of the genus Triceratops in textbooks and had gazed without particular interest at a skeleton of one as displayed in a great museum. Beyond that, his knowledge did not extend. He recognized the thing as a Triceratops, for =Renny had an excellent memory. But he didn't know it was an herb eater. He wouldn't have believed that at the moment, anyway. The thing looked like it was bent on making a meal out of =Renny. "Here's the history of my night," =Renny chuckled after greetings were exchanged. Rapidly, he told of his wild ride on the great colossus with the 3 horns and the huge bony shield over its neck; of the playful thunder lizard in the lakelet; of his fight with the odorous and bat-like flying reptile chick; and of the creature with the double row of upstanding, saw-teeth protuberance down its back. He told of ducking into the handy trench and of being buried. Then he came to the point where he shoved his person out into the hot night and teeth had seized him. =Renny exhibited a small chewed spot on his shoulder. He shook the pelt of the hyena-like animal. "It was this little thing that bit me," he laughed! "It made enough noise to be a lion. I choked the durn thing. I'm gonna make a pen wiper or somethin' out of its hide to commemorate one of the worst scares I ever got. When it took hold of me, I sure thought the jig was up." =Doc suddenly remembered something. "That smoke. Did it come from a fire you made?" "What smoke," =Renny asked vacantly? "I haven't made any fire." The construction work had been done some time ago. Months past, at least! "=Kar built the hangar on his other trip," =Doc concluded. Clambering down from his lofty perch, =Doc approached the plane. He was not molested. =Kar probably had no more than 3 men surviving. At least, only three had captured =Doc's friends. As for that capture -- how had 3 thugs managed to get the upper hand on =Doc's men? =Doc had his suspicions. And they were far from pleasant! =Doc investigated the craft. He found a few boxed supplies in the cabin. These proved to be canned goods and dried fruit. Although =Doc was hungry -- having had nothing but meat since entering the crater -- he did not touch the grub. He knew in just what subtle forms poison can be administered. =Doc quitted the strange hangar. Tall grass outside the massive timber gates absorbed his bronze figure. =Kar's headquarters should be somewhere near. =Doc was hunting it. His men would be prisoners there since they had not been in the hangar. In the distance, faint spots in the moonlight-like day within the steam-covered crater, the fearsome bats of reptiles still circled. Probably they had not quitted the thorn patch where they had chased =Doc. They were more tenacious of purpose than he had thought.