"That's so. Well, about these here arms. The yallah-legs has got most o' 'em. Don't they suspect nothin'?"
"Nobody knows what you're sending them through for, do they? Nor who's sending them? Nor where they go to?"
"No. They don't even know it's me sendin' 'em. They're told to leave 'em at a certain place in Nugget. Then O'Brien calls an' gets 'em an' stows 'em away. An' they stays stowed till wanted. An' O'Brien daren't squeal, 'cause I got him watched. An' he knows it."
"Well, what are you afraid of?"
"Just that the yallah-legs has smelt trouble."
"They haven't. And, anyway, they'd never connect these arms with you or with any big plan."
Greasy was satisfied—till he raised another point.
"I ain't got half my men I wants through the pass; not more'n twenty. An' it's gettin' harder all the time to get 'em through. An' we tried to rush the pass—that is, some o' the boys did, an' 'bout thirty o' my men behind, so's the yallah-legs wouldn't see 'em. An' what happened? Why that li'l squirt of an officer an' his twelve men wouldn't let 'em through—kep' 'em off with a bloody Maxim!"
Welland felt tempted to tell the gangster that the crowd had been bluffed. But he refrained.
"Why did you try it?" he demanded.