Chapter X

59

STRANGE FISH

Uncle Bill Hazel laughed. “Still like to play at being an Indian, eh Johnny?” he said. He turned to Monk and Ham and Doc and said, “You know something about Johnny, here? He's not much more Indian than Adolph Hitler.”

“I like the Hitler comparison,” Johnny Toms said sourly.

“Touchy, eh? Dish it out, but can't take it, eh?” Uncle Bill Hazel said amiably. “Okay, forget it, Johnny. I always did think you were too big a boy to play Indian games, and you didn't like me for thinking it.” He turned to Doc Savage again. “Johnny is a fine boy, but he likes to act like Hiawatha. Johnny is a Harvard man.

You wouldn't think it, would you. Harvard Law School, yes, sir.”

Watching Johnny Toms and Bill Hazel, Doc Savage decided there was more than a mild dislike between the two. It must be a strong feeling to carry over five or six years, and pop out again as swiftly as it had.

“While you're telling secrets,” said Johnny Toms grimly to Bill Hazel, “you might tell us why you turn up this way.”

“What way did I turn up?”

“Like a buzzard in a cyclone,” Johnny Toms said.

Bill Hazel grinned. “Well, it's an interesting story. I'll tell it. But how about something to eat? Where's your Oklahoma hospitality?”

Paris called Big Bird, the Indian woman who presided over the functions of the ranch house, and told her Uncle Bill was hungry. Big Bird looked surprised to see Bill Hazel, and being no weasel with words, she said,

“I thought they had you in jail somewhere by now. What do you want to eat? A steak?” She went out without waiting for an answer.

“I love this.” Uncle Bill Hazel chuckled. He took a comfortable chair. “I love a home−coming like this. It's just as if I had left yesterday.” He leaned back and grinned at them. “It's damned few places in the world you can go back to and find them the way they were yesterday.”

Then he fell to studying Doc Savage.

“Heard of you, Savage. It's a little unusual to hear about an American the way I've heard of you, in France, in Germany, in Africa, the far corners of the earth. Glad to meet you. Should have met you before.” He blinked admiringly at Doc. “You in this thing?”

“Yes,” Doc told him.

“Had any trouble so far?”

“Some.”

“You'll have,” said Bill Hazel, “a hell of a lot more.”

Doc was forming an opinion of Bill Hazel. The man must be close to fifty, and he was as composed as if he were paying a Sunday afternoon visit, which probably meant that he had been around trouble so much that he was comfortable in its presence. Doc had met the type before. He had learned that it was good to be afraid of them.