"I brought you here last night. You'd gone the limit in town. Somebody tried to shoot you an' got as far's your arm. I brought you here to try to make somethin' like a man of you,"—ending with a hint of bitterness in spite of the whimsical smile with which he watched the effect of his last words.
Lytton stirred.
"Damned arm!" he muttered, thickly, evidently conscious of only physical things. "I thought something was wrong. It hurts like.... Say, whatever your name is, haven't you got another drink?"
"My name is Bayard; you know me when you're sober. You're at my ranch, th' Circle A. You've had your drink for to-day."
"May—Bayard. Say, for God's sake, Bayard, you ain't going to let me.... Why, like one gentleman to another, when your girl Nora, the waitress ... said you'd knock me ... keep away. I wasn't afraid.... Didn't know she was yours.... I quit when I knew.... Treated you like a gentleman. Now why ... don't you treat me like a gentle ... give me a drink. I kept away from your wo—"
"Oh, shut up!"
The ominous quality of the carelessly spoken, half laughing demand carried even to Lytton's confused understanding and he checked himself between syllables, staring upward into the countenance of the other.
"In the first place, she's not my woman, in th' way you mean; if she was, I wouldn't stand here an' only tell you to shut your mouth when you talked about her like that. Sick as you are, I'd choke you, maybe. In th' second place, I'm no gentleman, I guess,"—with a smile breaking through into a laugh. "I'm just a kind of he-man an' I don't know much about th' way you gentlemen have dealin's with each other.
"No more booze for you to-day. Get that in your head, if you can. I've got coffee for you now an' some soup."
He turned and walked to the stove in the far corner, kicked open the draft and took a cup from the shelf above. All the while the bleared, scarce understanding gaze of the man in bed followed him as though he were trying to comprehend, trying to get the meaning of Bayard's simple, direct sentences.