Several broke; the night breeze blew others out.

The giant was fully occupied with his smoking difficulties. Doc Savage circled and drifted, waithlike, toward the shed. In negotiating one narrow stretch of rock, he was completely exposed to the gaze of the colossus. Crossing this, Doc chose an instant when the giant was carefully striking a match.

Unseen, the bronze man reached the shed.

The metal sides of this were open, the canvas cover having been roiled up for ventilation. This sheathing could be lowered if necessary, making the shed seem from the air -- or from a distance of a few yards on the island -- nothing more interesting than an angular rock.

Doc Savage eased inside, curious to learn what the giant was guarding.

That mystery was soon clarified.

A man reposed on the rocky shed floor. Darkness was complete where he lay, so black as to seem solidified. Doc Savage found the fellow only by touch, and through use of his sensitive olfactory organs.

Doc's bronze fingers explored, their skilled touch conveying impressions of almost visual clarity. He got the height of the prisoner, his probable weight. He found stout handcuffs on wrists and ankles.

The man lay perfectly motionless; none of his muscles stirred. Yet he was definitely alive. Doc applied pressure on certain nerve centers, testing the reaction of muscles to pain. Doc's knowledge of drugs, their effects and their symptoms, was profound. He came to the conclusion that the captor's limbs were under the influence of injections of some local anesthetic -- some substance in the nature of the novocaine which dentists use.

Doc Savage examined the man's ankles again. The chain of the manacles encircled the steel framework of the camouflaged shed. Doc tested the links. They were very strong.

The bronze man began removing his shirt, it being his intention to wrap the cloth around the manacles to m.u.f.fle the inevitable snap as he broke them.

Then the giant guard, probably with the idea of getting out of the wind to light his big pipe, entered the shed.

Doc Savage was under no delusions. The match flame was certain to reveal his presence. He left the strange captive and crept out silently on the opposite side.

For several minutes he loitered near by. But the giant showed no sign of leaving the shed.

DOC SAVAGE continued his search. He found more huts. All were cleverly constructed to escape detection from the air. At last he located one of which he seemed to have been seeking.

This structure was obviously the headquarters. It held maps. These were marked with red lines to indicate the intended curse of attack upon Detroit and other cities. There was also a large safe in the place.

Here, when he was upon the island, the master mind of the giants obviously made his headquarters.

Doc Savage still carried the case of equipment which he had rescued from the lake. Opening it, he removed certain small boxes and coils of wire. He concealed a tiny disc of a device overhead, where it was unlikely to be observed. The insulated wires leading from this were so thin as to be unnoticeable to the eye. Doc carried these down a metal girder to a boxlike container of his apparatus, which he buried under the dry sand floor.

This done, Doc left the hut.

At the other end of the island stood the log structure in which the giants were quartered. Doc approached it cautiously.

At a concealed point only a few yards from this bunk house he planted more of his apparatus, hiding it in such a fashion that it was practically certain to escape detection.

Then he returned to the pit where his companions were imprisoned. The pig, Habeas Corpus, was not in sight.

Doc studied the giant guards intently. Then the bronze man's throat muscles tensed in a peculiar fashion.

From the boulder some distance away came a voice -- a voice resembling that of the florid Hack.

"Come over here a minute, you two big guys!" it directed. The giants hesitated. They glanced at the shed.

"Hurry up!" rapped the voice from the rocks. The giants were sure it was Hack's voice. They lumbered toward the sound. They had not taken a dozen steps when the voice came again.

"Never mind," it said, "I thought I heard a speed boat out on the lake. But it was just a frog croaking." The giants returned to their position. Not overly-bright fellows, neither realized they had been tricked.

Doc Savage was an excellent ventriloquist and a master of voice imitation. Throwing tones which were very like those of Hack, he had decoyed the giants, getting their attention.

While the giants had looked away, Doc had crossed to the roofed-over pit. Here he found Habeas inside the shed. He tucked the pig under his arm and dropped into the pit.

Doc's five men all but held their breaths, waiting for their bronze chief to explain what he had been doing.

No explanation, however, was forthcoming.

Two or three times, the men imagined they heard faint whisperings. These they dismissed as being gentle sounds made by grams of sand swept into the pit by the night breeze.

They failed to realize that Doc had drawn the steel-haired girl aside or that he was speaking to her in a wisp of a whisper.

Chapter 24. MASTER OF THE GIANTS.

HACK, THE the thug with the neck which seemed perpetually flushed, appeared at the top of the pit half an hour later. He was excited; his electric hand lantern blazed light downward with an angry suddenness.

"What's been goin' on here?" he rapped.

Doc Savage did not look upward. His manner was tranquil. He ignored Hack's question.

"You, big bronze guy -- I asked you a question," Hack grated.

"Yeah?"said homely Monk.

"Don't get funny. I'm talkin' to your boss. What's been goin' on here?"

Doc Savage seemed to consider, as if debating what could possibly be meant by the inquiry.

"We've been talking," he replied. "And we're getting a bit hungry, too. Suppose you produce some food."

"I'll produce some trouble," Hack promised harshly. "The big fellows say they heard my voice around here a while ago. I wasn't here. What did they hear?"

"Can the giants talk?" Doc asked. "From the sounds they have made in the past, I presumed their vocal cords were affected by the size-increasing process."

"They can't talk, but they can write out their words. What've you birds been up to?"

Doc glanced at his fellow prisoners and asked, "What have we?"

"Search me." Renny popped his huge fists together, and the impact made a rocky sound.

"You're givin' me a run-around!" Hack rasped. Then Hack discovered Habeas Corpus. The sight of the pig brought a cry of angry surprise. He leaned over to see better, with the result that he nearly fell into the pit.

"Where'd that peewee edition of a hog come from?" he demanded, when he had recovered his balance.

Monk held Habeas up. He spread the shote's enormous ears, and asked, "D'you see these ears?" Hack only snarled.

Monk, homely face serious, explained, "Habeas is a very special kind of a pig. You'd be surprised at what he can do. He uses his ears for wings. He can fly like a bat. He flew down here."

Hack made a choking sound of wrath.

"Habeas can talk, too," Monk added. "Listen."

He held the pig higher. Words seemed to come from the freakish porker's mouth.

"Say, Hack, when do we eat?" asked the voice. Hack maintained a dumbfounded silence for a long min ute. Then the explanation dawned on him.

"A ventriloquist!" he barked. Laughing heartily, he extinguished his light. "That explains the voice they heard."

In a loud tone, Hack yelled for four additional giants. These arrived, their heavy footfalls plainly audible to the prisoners in the pit. After ordering the newcomers to a.s.sist in guarding the captives, Hack took his departure.

"Fat chance we've got of getting away, now," Re nny groaned.

Monk moved close to Doc, and asked, "Did I do right -- havin' the pig talk to him?"

"You could not have done better," Doc replied.

THE HOURS which followed seemed interminably long. Monk prowled around the pit walls like a caged gorilla. Habeas grunted at his heels.

"The sun must've forgotten to come up," Monk complained. Later, the homely chemist was surprised to find Doc sleeping in the center of the pit. Rea.s.sured by the calmness with which the bronze man was taking their incarceration, Monk also tried to slumber. Failing even to keep his eyes shut, however, he gave it up.

He started a whispered consultation with the others by asking, "I wonder what Doc found while he was outside?"

"Why don't you ask him?" inquired the steel-haired girl.

"No use."

"Why not?"

"Doc's ways are kinda strange to those who don't know him," Monk explained. "If he don't want to give information, he won't."

"But you haven't asked him what he found," Jean Morris retorted.

"The five of us know Doc as well as anybody knows him. We can tell when he's got things to say, and when he hasn't. When he kept silent after returning, that was the tip-off. Right now, he's not talking."

"Humph!" sniffed Jean Morris.

To kill time, Monk managed to pry several small fragments of rock from the pit bottom. He pegged theseup at the giants.

The monsters retaliated by showering down great handfuls of fine sand. The choking cloud produced great discomfort.

"Let them alone," advised Doc, who had been awakened by the sand. 'They have the upper hand now."

Jean Morris decided to try her hand at persuading Doc to talk.

"What did you find outside?" she asked. "And what did you do?"

"That will be cleared up when the time comes," Doc answered.

And this was all the information the steel-haired girl received, although she put several more questions to the bronze man.

Disgusted, she flounced to the other side of the pit and tried to get some sleep.

Dawn came after what seemed an age. It gorged the top of the pit with reddish light. The depths remained gloomy.

Doc Savage approached Jean Morris where she sat apart from the others, and said something which the rest did not catch.

The young woman was apparently piqued by Doc's refusal to answer her questions. Her voice was waspish.

"I remember every word you told me last night," she said, "but you might inform me of what you found outside."

"Not so loud," Doc admonished, and left her.

The bronze man's aids exchanged surprised glances. This was their first hint that Doc and the steel-haired girl had held a consultation.

"We heard whispers right after Doc got back," Monk said thoughtfully. "He was talking to her then."

The five men eyed Doc. Curiosity was consuming them, and their expressions showed it.

"Listen, Doc," Monk said hopefully, "what's the idea of keepin' us in the dark?"

"Psychology," Doc replied.

"Huh?"

"If you fellows were told how our trouble here will work out -- if it goes according to my expectations -- your hopes would rise. You might get the idea you were almost out of the mess."

"And would that make us mad!" Monk snorted.

"On the contrary, it would make you highly elated."

"Spill it, Doc! After a night in this hole we need a pick-up."

"If the scheme goes wrong, you're going to be very disappointed," Doc remonstrated casually. "You will feel much worse than you would if you had known nothing of it. To save you that let-down is the reason Idid not tell you."

"Well, we're all stirred up now," Monk grinned. Doc studied them. He apparently concluded the purpose of his keeping silent had been defeated.

"All right, I'll tell you," he said.

But he never did.