“All right, Lige, all right,” said he. “I’ve got to ride to Hackamore to carry out my part of the scheme against Dunbar.” “Your part? What’s your part?” The jibbering laugh came from the wizened, expressionless face of the hunchback. “How are those paste diamonds to be found in Dunbar’s saddlebags, Lige,” he asked, “if I don’t put ’em there? That’s my work. I didn’t want to ride into Hackamore with Abraham Isaacs because people might think of it later, and suspect something. But I can go into town now, and----” The words died on the hunchback’s lips. He was looking at the seemingly blank wall--staring hard. “What ails you, Jerry?” queried Lige. Without speaking, Jerry shambled to the wall and swept one clawlike hand over it; then he looked at the hand and turned on Lige with eyes that gleamed like coals. “Look, Lige!” he whispered hoarsely. He held up his hand. Lige Benner saw that it had been blackened with something from the wall. “What is it?” went on Lige curiously. “Soot! Soot and ashes, Lige. Here’s where Gringo Pete Billings was leaning while Red Steve was talking to him. Gringo Pete couldn’t have picked up soot and ashes on his clothes between the Star-A ranch and here.” Lige Benner had not the wit necessary to follow these deductions back to their cause, but he knew that some discovery of importance had been made by Jerry. The hunchback whirled around, without waiting for further talk, and rushed into the rear room. He saw the chair where Wild Bill had been sitting when summoned into the living room to talk with Red Steve. The chair also had traces of soot and ashes on its seat and back. Like a hound on the scent, Jerry glided to the fireplace, staring into it and upward with sharp, glimmering eyes. The next moment the hunchback got into the fireplace. “Go into the next room and talk, Lige,” he called out; “talk out loud, Lige, just like you were talking with Isaacs.” Gradually Lige Benner’s mind was leading him to the truth. As his brother proceeded with his investigations, the trend of the hunchback’s suspicions was made so manifest that Lige could not escape understanding them. In the living room Lige spoke two or three sentences in the easy, conversational tone used with Isaacs. Jerry rushed in on him suddenly, his eyes blazing. “Gringo Pete is a spy!” he snarled, dancing around his brother in grotesque wrath and excitement; “he’s a spy, I tell you, Lige! He came here to find out something, and he crawled into the fireplace and overheard all that passed between us and Isaacs!” Lige Benner’s wrath was rising in a way that matched Jerry’s. “What’s Gringo Pete’s object?” he asked, trying to keep his head clear and get at all the angles of the situation. “His object, Lige, was to find out what we’re going to do,” declared Jerry. “Of course; but why?” “Why? Oh, use your brains, Lige, if you’ve got any!” “He hates Buffalo Bill as much as I do. Even if he did find out anything----”