“I reckon it’s a good thing fer you,” he said, growing boastful, “that I met you jest as I did.”
“I judge it was a good thing for both of us,” Benson parried.
Though Benson had not touched the whisky, his face had a peculiar look, and one that was not pleasant. All the facial masks he assumed at various times were now laid aside, so that his real self was more than usually well revealed. It denoted cunning; but also a fear that had begun to approach terror. It showed, too, a lack of mental balance. Some of Benson’s “feats” had often made his friends say he was “crazy,” though in its literal sense they did not mean it. If they had beheld him now, though, they might not have thought him crazy, they would have seen that he was desperate. And desperation carried to an extreme is but a form of insanity, in that it leads men to do things which in ordinary moments they would not dream of attempting.
No greater proof of Benson’s decided list toward insanity was needed than the step he had decided on, and was now bent upon carrying out. A man normally balanced would have seen that its end was more than threatening. For, even granting that he induced the Utes to destroy Buffalo Bill’s party, that could not be the end of it. Other men would be sent, backed by the power of the American Government. A perfectly sane mind would have known that he could no more combat and destroy them all than the old woman could sweep back the sea.
Benson justified his plan to himself by the thought that if he had to “go under” he could send Buffalo Bill ahead of him to the land of shades.
A question was voiced now by the man who looked so much like a great ape that Benson had a real scorn of his mental ability:
“Don’t ye reckon it’d be best if we jest dropped this hull blamed thing and purceeded to put distance between us and these hyer people?”
Benson stopped, his face white and nervously troubled, his brows lowering.
“Weakening, are you?” he snarled.