Perhaps he lives
miles away and we'll have to get some sort of conveyance to tote our
machine out to his place."
"Yes," observed Frank, "I've been laying out plans along that line. If
you don't mind I'll drop ashore while you're having the crates brought
on deck and make inquiries. Even away down here in this wilderness money
talks. Colonel Josiah told us it did for him in the heart of darkest
Africa, you know. And a few bolivars will hire all the help we want."
Andy was perfectly agreeable that his companion should have taken upon
himself the task of engineering things.
"You can always discount me when it comes to bargaining," he said,
laughingly; "so go ahead and fix things to suit yourself, Frank."
Upon reaching shore, Frank, who had taken old Felipe along with him to
serve as interpreter, found that Carlos Mendoza had his home just on the
border of the town, though it was a little distance away. He soon made
arrangements for hiring a native cart to be used in transporting the
precious aeroplane.
In less than half an hour they were on the way. The boat had been left
in charge of McClintock, the Scotch engineer, who would make sure that
the crew remained on board or lost the wages coming to them.
Both of the boys were so excited that they paid little attention to the
strange scenes which now surrounded them in the valley town far back in
the interior of tropical Colombia.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119