"That pin is worth five hundred dollars," said Mr. Bolton. "Put it on; I want to see how it looks on you."
"But what do you want me to do with it?" enquired Tom.
"I want you to take it up and give it to Black Dan when you see him. You are bound to meet him if you go to Fort Hamilton."
"I can't take it. You have already done more for me than I had any right to expect."
"Never mind that," said the gambler, taking the pin from Tom's hand and fixing it in his neck-handkerchief. "You see, he got into a little rucuss a few nights before I came away, and the fellow grabbed him in there and tore three of the diamonds out, and he gave it to me with the request that I would take it to New Orleans and have it repaired for him. There, now, you look like a sport."
"I wish you would take it out," said Tom. "I don't like to have it in there. Somebody might see it and rob me."
"You haven't got any baggage, have you?"
Tom replied that all the clothes he had with him were those he stood in at that moment.
"It won't take long to fix that. Just tell Dan, when you see him, that that thing has been in pawn more times than I can remember, but somehow I always managed to work around and get the money. By the way, he owes me ten dollars. He didn't give me money enough. What those diamonds are set in I don't know. Dan won the mine in which the stuff was found and had the pin made from some of the quartz; but the diamonds didn't suit him, and so he sent them by me to New Orleans. But, bless you, in two months from that time he was as poor as Job's turkey."
"Did he lose the mine?"