During the forenoon of the day that had witnessed the call of Sim Pierce at the Star-A ranch, Lige Benner and his hunchback brother were in the big living room of the adobe house.
Jerry’s crippled body was almost lost in the depths of an easy-chair. He was smoking a home-made cigarette and watching Lige with two brilliant, ferret-like eyes. Lige Benner, deeply wrought up over something, was pacing up and down the room.
“What’s the use of fretting?” asked Jerry in his thin, high-pitched, querulous voice. “Do as I tell you, Lige, and you’ll get even with that outfit up the river.”
“I can’t get the girl, can I?” fumed Lige, halting and whirling on the crooked form in the chair.
“You can get something better, Lige,” answered the hunchback, his eyes glimmering, “and that’s revenge for having lost the girl.”
“Revenge on who?”
“On Dunbar, on Perry—perhaps on Buffalo Bill and his pards.”
“Without making trouble for myself?”
It was not so much the coward that spoke, as the man of secret ways and dark.
“Yes, Lige, and without making trouble for yourself,” said Jerry. “I’ve thought it all out. That’s why I sent one of the men to watch the Star-A ranch, and it’s why I sent Red Steve to Hackamore after Abraham Isaacs.”