"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.... "I don't know what your fight with him is, but he's abused you; he's got you hogtied now. That you've a fight of some sort with him is enough for me.... Aren't two heads better than one?"--insinuatingly. The miner forced himself to meet that inquiring gaze steadily, but his expression of delight, of triumph, which came into his face was not forced, was not counterfeit, and he growled quickly: "I don't need any man's help in my fight ... when I got an even chance. My troubles are my own an' I'll tend to 'em, but, if you want to do me a favor, you'll cut these damn straps ... you'll give me a chance to fight, man to man!" He did not lie with those words; his inference might have been deception but that chance to fight man to man was the dearest privilege he could have been offered. No primitive urge to punish with his own hands a man who had crossed him made itself paramount with Lytton; he wanted Bayard to suffer, but the means did not matter. If he could cause him injury and avoid the consequence of personal accountability, so much the better, and it was with a grunt of relief and triumph that he shoved the automatic into the waist band of his pants, drew a knife from his pocket and grasped the tightly knotted straps. "You bet, I'll help anybody against that dirty-- "Sit still!" he broke off, as Benny, quivering with excitement, strained forward. "I'm likely to cut you if--"