He flung the words like a challenge.  His lower jaw was thrust forward.  He looked like a savage animal menacing his keeper.

But Lucas lay without moving a muscle, lay still and quiet, without tension and without emotion of any description, simply watching, as a disinterested spectator might watch, the fiery rebellion that had kindled against him.

At length very deliberately he held out the revolver.

“Well,” he drawled, “my life isn’t worth much, it’s true.  And you are quite welcome to take your gun and end it here and now if you feel so disposed.  For I warn you, Nap Errol, that you’ll find me considerably more in your way than Sir Giles Carfax or any other man.  I stand between you already, and while I live you won’t shunt me.”

Nap’s lips showed their scoffing smile.  “Unfortunately—­or otherwise—­you are out of the reckoning,” he said.

“Am I?  And how long have I been that?”

Nap was silent.  He looked suddenly stubborn.

Lucas waited.  There was even a hint of humour in his steady eyes.

“And that’s where you begin to make a mistake,” he said presently.  “You’re a poor sort of blackguard at best, Boney, and that’s why you can’t break away.  Take this thing!  I’ve no use for it.  But maybe in Arizona you’ll find it advisable to carry arms.  Come over here and read Cradock’s letter.”

But Nap swung away with a gesture of fierce unrest.  He fell to prowling to and fro, stopping short of the bed at each turn, refusing doggedly to face the quiet eyes of the man who lay there.

Minutes passed.  Lucas was still watching, but he was no longer at his ease.  His brows were drawn heavily.  He looked like a man undergoing torture.  His hand was still fast closed upon Anne’s letter.

He spoke at last, seeming to grind out the words through clenched teeth.  “I guess there’s no help for it, Boney.  We’ve figured it out before, you and I. I’m no great swell at fighting, but—­I can hold my own against you.  And if it comes to a tug-of-war—­you’ll lose.”

Nap came to his side at last and stood there, still not looking at him.  “You seem almighty sure of that,” he said.

“That’s so,” said Lucas simply.  “And if you care to know why, I’ll tell you.  It’s just because your heart isn’t in it.  One half of you is on my side.  You’re just not blackguard enough.”

“And so you want to send me to Arizona to mature?” suggested Nap grimly.

“Or to find yourself,” Lucas substituted.  “Say, Boney, if you don’t give in pretty soon I’ll make you take me along.”

“You!” Nap’s eyes came down at last to the drawn face.  He gave a slight start, and the next moment stooped to lift the tortured frame to another position.  “If Capper were here he’d say I was killing you,” he said.  “For Heaven’s sake, man, rest!”

“No,” gasped Lucas.  “No!  I haven’t finished—­yet.  Boney, you—­you’ve got to listen.  There’s no quarrel between us.  Only if you will be so damned headstrong, I must be headstrong too.  I mean what I say.  If you won’t go to Arizona alone, you will go with me.  And we’ll start to-night.”