Lytton looked at him pointedly.
"You know him pretty well, too?" he asked.
"Know him! Do I know him? Look at this!"—with a slight lift of his bound hands. "That's how much I know him.... I seem to have a fair enough acquaintance, don't I?
"Say, hombre, you turn me loose an' set here an' I'll pack him in to you ... on my back ... if you're lookin' for him that way!"
Lytton looked quickly about; then stood still to listen; the silence was not broken and he stared back at the bound man, a new interest in his face, as he framed his hasty diplomacy.
"Do you mean you've ... got a fight with this man? With Bayard?"
Benny moved from side to side in his chair and forced a laugh.
"Have I?" he scoffed. "Have I? You just wait until I get loose an' get my fingers on him. You'll think it's a fight, party.... But I'm in a fine way to do anythin' now!"
He looked through the front doorway, out down the sharp draw that the trail to the valley followed. Lytton stepped nearer to him and as he spoke his voice became eager and rapid,
"I've a quarrel with him, too!" The craven in him drove him forward to this newly offered hope, the hope of finding an ally, some one to share his burden of responsibility, some one he could hide behind, some one, perhaps, who might be inveigled into doing his fighting for him. "I came here to hunt him down. When I came down that hill there,"—gesturing—"I thought he was in here because I heard your chair move on the floor. When I jumped through that door and covered you, I expected he'd be here and that I'd ... Well, that I'd square accounts with him for good....