Ool and his accomplice, the gangster Watches Bowen, brazenly approach Doc Savage and claim to be survivors of the lost Lenderthorn arctic expedtion. They request the use of Doc's new dirigible. They deceitfully tell Doc that they will use it to search the ice pack for signs of the fate of their lost comrades. Their ruse fails. In a fight that ensues in the 86th floor office, Doc secures the strange black goggles. When the  white-skinned Ool threatens to take the life of Ham, Doc lets them escape.

Posing as the criminal "patriot" Damiter Diakoff, Doc infiltrates Watches Bowen's gang and begins to learn the truth.  Bowen and Ool want the dirigible to gain access to a mysterous resource on the arctic ice. Doc's disguise goes unnoticed for a time, but he is eventually discovered. The mighty Man Of Bronze erupts like a volcano and clears out the gang, who flee in panic. 

After a few days of checking, Doc and his men learn that Ool and Watches Bowen's gang have loaded an airplane and departed New York. "As vicious an assortment of criminals as had ever disgraced a good airplane". Contacting airports along the main route through Canada, Doc is able to track their plane. He and his men board the dirigible and pursue the evil band.

They arrive over the region of the polar ice pack where the Lenderthorn expedition was lost. Monk happens to use the black goggles and receives a startling sight. A hundred foot plume of eerie "fire" which can only be seen with the black goggles rises out of an ice crevasse. Catching Doc off-guard, Watches Bowen's plane darts out of the sky, guns blazing, and forces the dirigible into the cold-fire cavern of a fantastic subterranean world of an ancient super-civilization!