Without waiting for an answer, Monk leaped easily upward. He caught the bars of the gate. In a surprisingly short time he had surmounted the barrier, monkeylike. He threw the gate lock and Renny drove the car inside.
Big Eric was growling and holding one of Doc's compact machine guns at ready. But he did not fire. As Monk and Renny approached, he concluded they were actually Doc's men.
Pretty Edna Danielsen added the only word needed to allay Big Eric's suspicions.
'These men are Monk and Renny,' she said. 'They answer Mr. Savage's description.'
FOR a moment, Monk and Renny were held quite speechless by Edna Danielsen's superb beauty. Monk, especially. Monk was something of a connoisseur of feminine pulchritude, homely soul though he might be himself. The secretary who presided over his correspondence in the penthouse laboratory Monk maintained near Wall Street in New York was conceded to be the prettiest in town. She couldn't hold the well-known candle to Edna Danielsen, though.
'But the Gray Spider has left the swamp by now!' Renny declared. 'He was to wait for us here in New Orleans.'
'When did you last see the Gray Spider?' inquired Big Eric.
'It was nearly midnight.'
Big Eric's massive face tensed. 'That does not sound so good! The appointment at which Doc Savage intended to seize the Gray Spider was set for ten o'clock. Something went wrong.'
Worried expressions came over the features of Monk and Renny. They exchanged glances.
'What do you reckon?'
'Hard to tell,' Monk growled. 'The thing for us to do is set a trap of our own for the Gray Spider.'
'Shall we call in the police?' asked Big Eric.
'And spend the rest of the night explaining and wading around in red tape?' Monk snorted. 'Nix!'
'Yeah,' Renny couldn't resist razzing Monk. 'The cops would take one look at you and swear there'd been a break at the zoo.'
Monk grinned widely. Strangely enough, any and all nasty cracks about his looks tickled Monk. He was one of those rare individuals—a homely man who was genuinely proud of the fact that his features were something to stop a clock.
'Renny and me will take care of this Gray Spider!' he declared.
'Renny and you and I!' corrected Big Eric. 'I’m in on this. We'll drop by the police station and leave Edna in safety.'
'You will not!' Edna snapped. 'I'm going to drive the car!'
'Glory be!' grinned Monk. 'I was afraid I'd have to ride with Barney Oldfield, here, again!' He gave Renny an amiable leer.
Big Eric ran into the house, was gone a minute, and came out stuffing little hand grenades into his pockets as though they were apples. He leaped into the car. The machine whipped around expertly, Edna Danielsen's slenderly capable hand on the wheel.
Big Eric flexed an arm which was muscled like a mule's leg.
'I crave action!' he declared.
HE got it a lot sooner than he expected. The powerful touring car swerved into the street. Instantly, two other machines approached from opposite directions.
They were big vehicles, but old and dilapidated. They literally bristled with little swamp men. Almost a dozen to each vehicle!
Both old cars banged headlong into the car occupied by Big Eric, Monk, Renny, and Edna. As though splashed by the impact, wiry, vicious swamp men covered the machine.
With a bellow, Renny reared upright. He performed the well-nigh incredible feat of grasping a man by the middle of the body with each hand. Only his gigantic fists made this possible. He banged them down among the other swamp men.
Monk's arms—longer by six inches than his own legs—gathered a bundle of the attackers. He fell out of the car with them, contriving so his two hundred and sixty pounds of gristle and stiff red hair landed atop them. As one man, they screeched in agony.
One of the efficient light machine guns Doc had perfected turned loose in Big Eric's fist. It seemed to melt the man in front of the muzzle. A second swamp man died before the ripping weapon.
Then a car jack swung. Big Eric collapsed. He kicked weakly on the floor boards trying to rise. A hard little fist pounded his temple until he no longer squirmed.
Monk emitted a series of deep bellowings, hisses, and gruntings—the sounds he always made when he fought. Men rushed him in clouds. They flew away from his driving arms like sparrows tackling a windmill.
Suddenly Monk seized a yellowish-brown fiend. With seeming ease, he threw the fellow fully twenty feet. The man's hurtling body knocked down another swamp man who was on the point of knifing Renny in the back.
Three of the attackers were holding Edna Danielsen. She kept them busy dodging her kicks and bites.
Renny abruptly went down, stumbling over a man he had slammed into unconsciousness with his great fists. And half a dozen swamp denizens piled atop him.
The man with the car jack ran up. He clanked his weapon off Renny's head. Renny weaved. He seemed to get sleepy on his feet.
Lunging, Monk reached Renny's side. He tore the assailants away. In a moment both giants were on their feet, fighting side by side.
A gun or two cracked. But in the gloom it was as easy to hit friend as foe.
Somewhere in the distance, a police siren started wailing. The shots had been heard. Somebody had put in a riot call.
'We got—'em goin'!' Monk puffed. He tore the car jack out of the hands of the wielder, and with one pull all but ripped the man's arm from his body.
Pretty Edna Danielsen screamed piercingly.
Monk and Renny looked in her direction.
A vicious-faced swamp man was holding a revolver to her head.
'Geeve up, damn yo'!' he screeched at Renny and Monk. 'Yo' want me to keel gal?'
The attackers had picked their one chance of stopping Renny and Monk. The two giants hesitated—and were suddenly down and secured. Stout ropes were lashed about their ankles and wrists.
A large bakery delivery truck now ran up. Monk remembered that Doc had mentioned the fact the Gray Spider used such trucks to transport his men in New Orleans. At least, such a truck had been waiting outside the Antelope Hotel, with Lefty at the wheel, when the swamp men had turned the shrapnel burst loose in the room they thought was occupied by Doc's men.
Such a truck would not attract attention at this hour. Bakeries often made early-morning deliveries.
Every one—prisoners and attackers alike—jammed into the truck. The vehicle rumbled away, spurred by the nearing wail of the police siren.
THE spokesman of the swamp men sneered into Monk's face.
'Yo' ain't so smart!' he grated.
'You're tellin' me?' Monk snarled. He was smarting under the defeat.
'Gray Spider ees send yo' to keednap Beeg Eric as test!' growled the swamp man. 'Hees want to see if yo' talk to Beeg Eric as friend. Yo' did.
Monk blinked slowly a few times. Then, just as slowly, he lifted what was left of his coat tails.
'Kick me!' he invited. 'Hard!'
He saw now that he and Renny had been tricked into revealing their true colors. But how had the Gray Spider gotten word into town so quickly? No one could have equaled that terrific drive of Renny's.
'The Gray Spider tipped you by radio to set a trap for us at Big Eric's place—that right?' he asked.
