Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/323

 thought he jerked down two of the heavy cartridge-boxes, to the left side of the driving- seat, as a barricade against a chance bullet. He felt sure it would be only a chance bullet; his contempt for both the arms and the marksmanship of the Latin-American was of long standing. He hauled and twisted and rolled two boxes as quickly down on the right-hand end of the driving-seat, calling to the girl at his side to crouch down between his knees as he reached out and took the speed-lever in his own hand.

Alicia had instinctively slowed down the car, for the moving lights were now not more than two hundred feet before them. McKinnon, with his foot held ready on the brakes, threw the motor out to full speed. He no longer felt afraid of the flimsy wooden gate. What he feared was a tie across the track or a switch thrown open to derail him. And any moment, he felt, as the heavy car gathered speed and once more hurled itself forward, they would start shooting at him with their pot-metal rifles.

He crouched lower and lower between his barricade of boxes as the car swung in toward the shadowy pier-end, so that his stooping body forced the girl to the very floor of the driving-seat. He saw a red tongue or two of flame dart