"Yew said a canful," agreed Mecklen complacently. "Let me give Arden his fer a start, an' then I'll tackle thet Jane--but while thet perambulatin' hunk of sudden death's still millin' round, this chile's gonna stick close home. Tell yuh what, Chief, ef yew'll give the word I'll glom the first freight fer Ardensville, an' when I git home they'll be liftin' him inter his Kingdom-Come-box wit' a derrick, he'll be thet leaded up. An' _af-ter_ thet, I'll go chase yore Jane." "What is the answer to that?" asked Snooper, turning to Morini. Gat looked at his friend. "The answer, Lew, is," he said, "when Hell snows over. Big Chief Triangle wants to save that little baby boy, and what Big Chief Triangle says goes." Mr. Brome extracted a cigar from a pocket of his flamboyant waistcoat and cut the tip from it with a gold pen-knife. Then he looked up at Mecklen. "You heard?" "I heard, Chief, but what I wanna say is----" "What you're going to do, is--go home, Lew," remarked Eddie sharply. "Go home, and stick close home like you said you were going to. When I want you I'll send for you. Go to Buckingham Gate, and if I hear of you showing your nose outside again unless I give the word--it won't be only the bulls who'll be out gunning for yours. Beat it!" Mecklen glared. He was not a man of equable temper, and the wintry scorn of Snooper's tone, no less than the consciousness of mastery that literally crackled about the words, got right up under Mecklen's pachydermis and rasped on his vanity. He started forward with a torrid word on his lips and brazen defiance in his mien. "Yew see hyar..." Brome did nothing, said nothing. He was lighting his cigar, and he never even looked up. His superiority wrapped him round like a sheet of defensive fire. It was a way of meeting rebellion which Mecklen had never encountered before, and before the Unknown the fear of the brute killer roused. If Snooper had met ferocity with ferocity, if his right hand had dropped the match it held and slid down towards his hip, the Alpha Triangle might have been smithereened at that instant. It was a peril the leaders of the Triangle faced daily--hourly--from minute to minute. Under them were killers, ruthless and inhuman tigers, with the ungovernable passions of the wild beasts; and these a mere handful of men essayed to rule and direct. They did it by setting themselves aloof, enveloping themselves in an aura of superiority, and before their caustic hauteur their hired butchers shrank back in perplexity. Snooper, calm and self-assured, dealt with Lew Mecklen in just that fashion. He ignored him. He appeared to have forgotten his existence, and certainly he gave no sign of considering him seriously. The gunman's words trailed away. He was up against something he couldn't understand, and the ingrained instinct of self-preservation flared a red danger signal before his eyes. "Guess yew said it, boss," he muttered angrily.