Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/149

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THE MOVEMENT IN RETREAT
133

As far as I can make out, they intend to commandeer a certain track-motor from the Consolidated Fruit Concern. They are to seize it and take it from the roundhouse just north of Puerto Locombia."

"What kind of track-motor?" broke in the thoughtful-eyed operator.

"It's a specially built sixty-horse-power Birmingham motor, belonging to the railway department of the Fruit Concern. I can remember when it was first imported, a year ago. The new railway construction engineers have been using it instead of a coach and locomotive for inspecting the ore-road extensions and the narrow-gauge banana lines that have been run out into the Parroto plantations. You see, it's so light in weight that six or eight peons can lift it about on the track; they can reverse it with out a turntable. De Brigard's men intend to run this motor out on the railway along the pier, at night, and keep it hidden in the Fruit Concern s weigh-scales shed, not forty feet from where the Laminian will be sure to dock. Then, as far as I can make out, the slag-boxes are to be quietly dropped over the side and piled up in the motor's tonneau. Then it is to be hurried out along the railway track to Cocoanut Hill, where everything is to be stored in the