some info node manuals have no index

[reader]

GNU Emacs 22.1.50.1 
Gentoo linux

I'm noticing some of the manuals in info browser do not have indices.
Yet when I open with the stand alone info browser the index is
present.

An example is the gawk manual at C-h i m gawk <RET>
If I then press `i' for index search I'm told `no index'  But going
thru the same routine with the stand alone info browser the index
works and can be searched with `i' command.

So starting emacs with -q -no-site-file I find the gawk index works as
expected.  Now looking thru the init files for something causing the
problem I'm striking out:

grep -i info .emacs /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.el

Only returns a few places where I've added something to
Info-default-directory-list
  
  (add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/usr/local/gnus/texi")
  (add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/usr/local/elisp-intro")
  ;;(add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/usr/local/bbdb/texinfo")
  (add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/usr/local/elisp-manual")

So apparently its something a little harder to identify... can anyone
coach me a bit on what I should be looking for, or futher steps to
find what is causing the problem?