surgery, they were nevertheless awed.
Lost from the outside world, beseiged here in the steaming, festering swamp, volleys of machine-gun slugs storming over them every minute or so, the feat could not but impress them as uncanny.
They scattered to their gun emplacements, wriggling through the shallow trenches they had dug.
Time now dragged. Long Tom finished his microphonic listening device. It was something like the apparatus used by the defenders of London during the Great War to listen for Zeppelins and planes—although far more perfected.
It was well after noon when Doc Savage caught sight of Buck Boontown. The man was directing the seige.
Doc signaled Buck Boontown. It was his intention to inform the swamp man that his son would join him shortly. There was no longer necessity for keeping Sill Boontown here. The lad would not bungle into danger, now that his mental powers were normal. And even had the boy wanted to assist the beseiged man, Doc would not have permitted the lad to oppose his father.
Buck Boontown was suspicious. He thought Doc's wig-wagging was a trick. So he blazed away with a machine gun. His accurate fire caused Doc to duck swiftly.
BUCK BOONTOWN chortled gleefully at the results of his rapid-fire blast.
Me—I almo' got heem that time!'
He watched the molelike mounds and tiny ridges of dirt the defenders of the hill had thrown up. His blasphemous pleadings to his hideous voodoo deity for another shot went unanswered.
Soon one of the other swamp men wriggled up with a message.
'Gray Spider ees want yo'!' he told Buck Boontown. 'He's send message. Yo' ees to go to Castle of the Moccasin!'
smirked Buck Boontown. 'Me—I go plantee queeck.'
The swamp man was flattered. Although by far the most intelligent of the debased clan of humans who had resided in this great morass so many generations they had reverted to a state of near savagery, Buck Boontown was, nevertheless, far from a smart man.
He fawned like a big dog under the attentions of the Gray Spider.
As he plowed through the tangled morass, Buck Boontown treated himself to flights of imagination. He was saving his money. Already he had quite a sum hidden in a fruit jar in the swamp. He would hoard more. He might even get enough to go to the great and marvelous city of New Orleans and spend the rest of his days. He had heard of the wonders of that metropolis, but had never been there. Indeed, he had never been out of this great swamp in his lifetime.
And the swamp was but a few hours' drive by speedy car from New Orleans!
Mile after mile, Buck Boontown covered. He kept a straight course, weaving aside only for pools and slime which he could not leap.
He was entering the most remote section of the swamp. Even the folk who lived in the great morass seldom came here. The region was forbidden to all but the inner circle of the Cult of the Moccasin. It held the Castle of the Moccasin—the headquarters of the king of the voodoo cult. The lair of the Gray Spider!
Buck Boontown climbed a cypress to make sure of his bearings.
Not a mile distant lay the Castle of the Moccasin!
NO doubt airplane pilots flying over the vast swamp and bayou district had noted the peculiar knot of trees and shrubs projecting over the surrounding territory. Probably they mistook it for a tiny clump of very tall trees.
Should they have chanced to fly low, they would have seen that these trees, strangely enough, were growing out of a great, boxlike knob which was covered completely by vines.
It had never occurred to any one that the knob was in reality a huge stone building, the roof and walls of which were cunningly camouflaged with growing vegetation.
Buck Boontown neared the strange, concealed castle of a structure.
He was challenged by a heavily armed guard, and permitted to pass. Soon he met a second guard.
It was well nigh impenetrable to the casual wayfarer, this Castle of the Moccasin. Years had been spent in its building. Labor had been furnished by the members of the voodoo cult.
The Gray Spider's campaign of wholesale looting of the great lumber companies of the South was no snap- of-the-finger scheme. It had been years in the conceiving and preparation.
Buck Boontown was admitted to the Castle of the Moccasin through a secret door.
The passage into which he came was stone-walled. Electric bulbs lighted the way. The air inside, contrasting greatly with the malodorous and steaming vapor of the swamp, was clean and pure. Buck Boontown knew nothing of such things as air-conditioning machines, so he attributed the sweetness of the atmosphere to some magic about the presence of the Gray Spider.
He entered a large room. The color scheme looked like it had been conceived by a futuristic artist who had gone crazy among his paint pots. Streaks and spots and daubs of green, red, blue, yellow, white, aluminum, gold—it all made neither sense nor beauty. Concealed colored lights dancing off and on added to the garish effect.
The whole thing was deliberately conceived to impress the near-barbaric minds of the swamp dwellers who worshiped the heathen deities of voodoo.
In the center sat a throne of gold—gold paint on a wooden foundation, although Buck Boontown didn't know it. To him, the throne alone represented limitless wealth.
The Gray Spider occupied the throne. He wore robe and mask. The repulsive, ash-colored tarantula crawled continually over one of his hands.
'Vat yo' want?' asked Buck Boontown in an awed whisper.
The Gray Spider mouthed a few low, meaningless sounds before he answered. This was merely to add to the supernatural atmosphere created by his weird surroundings.
'You are becoming one of my most trusted and efficient servants,' he told Buck Boontown.
mumbled the swamp man, highly pleased. 'Tank yo'!'
'I now have a most important task for you to perform.'
I do heem fo' yo'!' At the moment, ignorant Buck Boontown was so impressed he would have laid down his life at a mere word from the sinister devil who held sway over him.
The Gray Spider now produced a chamois poke of the type used by stores to deliver their cash to the banks. This was weighty with silver coin.
It held exactly one hundred dollars!
Buck Boontown clutched the poke eagerly. In common with most barbaric folk, a pile of silver coins gave him a bigger kick than ten times the sum in crisp bank notes.
'This is your reward,' said the Gray Spider. 'It is your pay for what you are to do. Later, if you serve me properly this time, there will be other tasks for you—and more rewards such as this!'
Buck Boontown could only mumble his gratitude.
