Maxison thanked them, and I released the clutch. We continued up the road.
“They’re certainly taking no chances,” I said.
Maxison gave me a surly look, grunted. “What did you expect?” he said.
On the other side of the sand-hills, I spotted four cops sitting round a machine-gun on a threelegged stand, covering the road. One of the cops was equipped with a portable radio, and he was tuning-in as I crawled by. They eyed the yellow sticker and then waved us on. It began to dawn on me that Mitchell had been right about it being impossible to get into the jail in the ordinary way.
Four hundred yards from the side- road that led through the sand-dunes to the jail was a barricade made out of a big tree-trunk on wheels.
I stopped.
Three cops in their shirt sleeves appeared from behind the barricade, and swarmed round us.
One of them, a big, red-faced guy with sandy hair, nodded to Maxison.
“Hey, Max,” he said, grinning. “Howja like the war conditions? Ain’t it hell? That punk Flaggerty sure has the breeze up. We’ve been camped out here all night, and now we’re being skinned by the sun. You going to the jail?”
“Yes,” Maxison said.