“Chances!” Fallon continued hoarsely. “Didn’t he find out from one of them guards what time we was leavin’ an’ didn’t he hang ’round the court house till he sees the bulls’ car drive up!”
“Gee!” Skippy said, feeling incapable of saying anything more.
“Sure! So like I’m sayin’, Frost waits his time an’ he goes an’ gets talkin’ to the driver indifferent like. It’s the same driver of the car we come up in—see?”
Skippy was beginning to see only too well, but he did not say so.
“Anyways, the driver says after a while he better go in an’ see if they’re set with the kids. Frost says sure, so long. He’s dressed in overalls like a mechanic—see? When the driver goes in the building, Flint quick opens the hood an’ shoots some stuff what he’s got in his pocket, in the oil. Jest enough so’s to make it get workin’ by the time we hit the bumpy road—see?”
Skippy stared.
“Well, there ain’t much more. Frost strolls ’round the corner an’ he quick gets in this car with Barker sittin’ there like he is now. It’s a cinch! They start off ahead ’cause the driver’s already told Frost what road he takes for Delafield. They wait behind some trees down that bumpy road an’ when we blow along they give us a coupla hunnerd feet ahead an’ follow without no lights. So when the engine goes bad on the driver an’ we hit the ditch, it’s more’n Frost an’ Barker expect.”
“Yeah,” Frost spoke up in a loud, raucous voice. “We expected they’d be stalled and standin’ around lookin’ for help so that when we cruised up soft and easy with no lights on, it’d be a cinch to cover the bulls and get Fallon and whoever of you kids that wanted to scram, into our car. But so help me, it was easier than that!”
“Yeah,” Fallon echoed, seeming to enjoy his role as narrator. “When Frost and Barker come along, there we was ditched—the bulls knocked silly an’ the driver so goofy it was a cinch for Frost to stick him up and knock him cold when he tries to keep us from scrammin’.”
“Frost used a gun, eh?”