Bat growled, “This is a converted police riot car. They’d have to have anti-tank guns.”

They were back on the main road leading out of town and to the site where New Woodstock was parked.

“Armored, eh?” Ferd said and then, “Hey, you’ve got a nasty cut on your head.” He pulled forth a handkerchief and handed it over. “This is clean.” Then he put a hand to his own head and groaned.

Bat Hardin, driving with one hand, held the handkerchief to the cut. “What the hell’s the matter?” he said. “If there’d been any gunfire, I’d say you’d copped one.”

“Splitting headache,” Ferd muttered. “I always get them, if I get into a fight.”

“By Christ,” Bat said bitterly. “I always thought of you as an easygoing character. What the hell was the idea of calling that guy a greaser? Haven’t you ever heard that a gentle answer turneth away rats?”

“Yeah, and you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make her,” Ferd groaned, still holding his head. “Listen, we had no more chance of getting out of that joint without a scrap than we have of flying without wings. Couldn’t you feel that in the air when we walked in? That bartender would have slipped us a mickey, if he’d had one handy. I just precipitated it before they got organized#longdash#thank God.”

“More of your feminine intuition?” Bat said in disgust. He dabbed at his head and looked at the handkerchief. He was bleeding profusely. “I’ll have to take this to Doc,” he growled.

They were approaching the camp site.

Ferd looked over his shoulder. “None of them coming#longdash#yet.”

“They won’t come,” Bat said, still in disgust. “There weren’t more than twenty or so of them, most of them tight. If we stuck around here for any length of time at all, they might stir up enough of the other townspeople to help them give us a hard time, but as of right now they’d be outnumbered. I suspect that the local cops, at this moment, are cooling them.”