His head came out into the warm, damp, crater air.

A ferocious bedlam of snarling and growling greeted him.

Sharp teeth sank into his body!

Chapter 18. WHERE TIME STOPPED

MEANWHILE, Doc and his men stood before the charge of the giant creodont, not knowing what strange thing would happen next.

The thing sprang for Monk. It missed, thanks to Monk’s great leap to one side. Monk’s machine gun hosed a stream of bullets into the side of the animal. This gave them an instant respite. The huge creature turned to bite itself where the bullets had hit, as though it had been jabbed there by thorns.

The beast was a fierce, deadly killer, even though it did look like a combination of weasel, dog and bear, with possibly a little long-haired elephant for good measure.

"Beat it, the rest of you!" Monk rapped. "Maybe I can delay the thing long enough for you to reach safety!"

Monk made a move to step in the path of the charging animal. He was willing to sacrifice himself, if only it would help his friends. This looked like the only thing that would save them.

"Wait!" Doc’s strong bronze hand stopped Monk.

"But Doc — " Monk started to object.

"Dry up — you homely ape!" Doc was actually chuckling in the face of the frightful danger! His tone was calm. His movements, although lightninglike, seemed unhurried.

"Let’s have your tobacco, Monk!" Doc’s hand suddenly possessed the can of smoking tobacco. So swiftly had it been taken that Monk hardly saw the gesture.

"Now — pick ‘em up and lay ‘em down!" Doc’s powerful arm propelled Monk in the direction of the nearest tree large enough to furnish safety.

"Good — good luck, Doc!" Monk muttered. Then he sprinted away at full speed. Monk didn’t see how even Doc’s sovereign powers could prevail over this prehistoric monster.

Emitting a loud, fierce noise, a combined bark and squeal and snarl, the hybrid behemoth sprang.

Doc’s sinewy fingers had tweaked open the tobacco tin. In a trice, he had the tobacco clutched, half in either palm. He sprang forward to oppose the giant beast. His arms moved nimbly.

An effective pinch of the tobacco was jammed into each of the thing’s little eyes. The rest went into its nostrils.

A swipe of a huge paw laid open Doc’s coat and shirt. But the metallic skin was hardly touched. Doc’s speed was nearly unbelievable.

Springing away, Doc raced for safety.

The prehistoric beast, blinded by the tobacco, its organs of smell temporarily ineffective for the same reason, could only bound about and release its blood-curdling growls.

Doc joined his friends up a massive fern.

"Afraid you’ll be without tobacco now," he told Monk.

Monk grinned admiringly. "I been thinkin’ about quittin’ smokin’ anyway."

Through a lacelike design of vines and branches, they could see the antics of the monster they had just escaped, thanks to Doc’s ingenuity and marvelous physique. The thing was alternately pawing at its smarting eyes and ramming its repulsive muzzle into the moist, soft earth.

"There it goes!" Long Tom emitted a sigh of relief as the beast decided to run. It volleyed away with a great uproar.

"Wonder how Oliver Wording Bittman is making out?" Johnny puzzled. "We haven’t heard a bleat from that tree where we left him."

"Probably so scared he’s lost his voice," said the sharp-tongued Ham.

Doc came to Bittman’s defense. "You’ve got to admit he has something to be scared of. Personally, it’s my duty to take care of the man, craven coward though he may become. He saved my father’s life."

"Sure," said the big-hearted Monk. "Bittman’s nerve was O. K. until we hit this fantastic crater. In fact, it was a continuous source of wonder to me to see how anxious he was to be with us every time we made a move. Remember how be went with us when we tackled Kar? That took nerve. Maybe his courage will return when he gets used to this strange place — if it’s possible to get used to it."

MONK, it seemed, was right.

Oliver Wording Bittman slid down from his fern-tree perch as they approached. His features were pale, but his big jaw was thrust out in a determined fashion. He fiddled with the skinning scalpel which still decorated his watch chain.

"I am ashamed of my cowardly performance during the night," he said, embarrassed. "I guess I am not a brave man. At any rate, my courage completely departed at sight of this ghastly world. But I think I have it back, at least in part."

"No one could be blamed for becoming shaky at sight of such an unbelievable, terrifying place," Doc smiled.

"Yeah — it’d give anybody the jitters!" Monk grinned.

Johnny was using the magnifying lens on the left side of his glasses to inspect unusual plants.

"The more I see of this place, the more astounding it becomes," he declared. "Notice there are few flowering plants or trees of the type which shed their leaves."

"Evolution practically stopped in this crater many ages ago," Doc offered.

Johnny began to wax eloquent. "No doubt this was once part of some land continent, probably the Asiatic. The prehistoric animal life entered and were trapped here in some manner — "

"Trapped — how?" Monk grunted.

It was some little time before this question was answered. They moved forward, seeking more open ground. They found it upon a knoll from which an extensive view could be obtained.

"Golly!" muttered Monk, as he gazed at the frowning heights of the crater rim. "We must be at sea level, or below. This crater looks like it was better’n ten thousand feet deep!"

Doc’s golden eyes ranged the crater edge as great a distance as possible. Due to the gloominess of the light which penetrated the clouds above the pit, the opposite wall of the crater was lost to sight. Long plumes of steam arising from what were obviously streams of boiling-hot water, helped hinder vision.

The day was really a hot, wet, ghostly gray twilight.

"I do believe I’ve seen moonlight brighter than this!" Long Tom said.

But they could get a fair idea of their surroundings. The utter denseness of the jungle was a thing to cause awe.

As they stood on the knoll, another sudden rainstorm came. Steam rolled from the hot mud lake like fluffy cotton. The violent downpour seemed to occur several times each day.

"The tremendous rainfall is caused by the moist hot air lifting to the cold air at the top of the crater, where it condenses and falls back as rain," Doc Savage explained. "The great rainfall also explains the plant growth being so rank it is nearly a solid mass."

He glanced about appraisingly.

"This vegetation is only slightly less dense than that which flourished during what scientists call the coal age."

"You mean it was jungle like this that made coal beds?" Monk grunted.

"Exactly. Let a landslide cover some of this jungle, or let water and mud cover it, and in the course of a few ages, we would have an excellent chance of a coal vein. Partial decomposition without access to air would do the work."

FURTHER appraisal of their amazing domicile led Doc to level a mighty bronze arm.

"There, brothers, is the explanation of these prehistoric life forms being forced to remain here through the ages!"

Johnny, the geologist, quickly comprehended what Doc meant.

"At one time a path gave access to the crater," he declared. "Some natural upheaval, probably an earthquake shock, destroyed the means of getting in and out. And the dinosaurs were forced to stay."

"Through the aeons of time that they have remained here, the outer sides of this cone weathered down. The land sank. Oceans rushed in. And this crater became Thunder Island, supposedly an active volcanic cone projecting from a seldom-visited section of the southern seas."