"Good," said McCloud heartily. "That's understood. And when I say absolute control, I mean just that. Each man has his own pet methods, but for the present it is my way."
"Your way goes, Parson," announced McShay grandly.
"I'm glad that is agreed upon. Very well, gentlemen, this being a peace conference we will begin by a general disarmament."
There was a momentous pause before McShay's mind groped its way through the bewildering chaos conjured up by this cataclysm.
"A what?" he gasped.
Quite unobtrusively and without attracting the notice of any one engaged in the powwow, Wah-na-gi had glided into the background, crept up the steps of the store, glanced furtively into the open window, taken a survey of the interior of the store, and then crouched on the steps where, without appearing to, she had been a most intent observer of the scene.
"There's Wah-na-gi," said McCloud, seeing her strategic position for his purposes. "Every man present will oblige me by handing over his weapons to her. They can be reclaimed later."
"Ain't that a bit unusual?" said Orson Lee awkwardly.
"Ain't fashionable in our set, Orson. Don't you think, Parson," said the Irishman, turning to McCloud with his most ingratiating manner, and McShay could be very winning when he wanted to; "don't you think a gun is a kind of civilizen inflooence, as it were? Ain't it a check on intemperate speech and reckless statement?"
"Are you going to begin by appealing from the decisions of the chair?" asked the chairman.