doctor?" said the sick man; for Tom
didn't know what else to call him. "If you are going out our way, we may
be able to be of some use to you."

"I am going to Fort Hamilton," said Tom. "How much farther I don't know
until I have seen Black Dan."

It was curious what a sensation that name occasioned in that little
company. They simply looked at each other and smiled, and then settled
down and sought new places for their feet on the railing. It was evident
that they took Black Dan for a relative of his.

"Have you got much to do with him?" asked one of the cowboys.

"I never saw him," Tom hastened to say. "I got his name from a Mr.
Bolton, who gave me a very valuable pin to return to him. He got into a
fight once and had some diamonds torn out of it."

"Yes, Dan has been in a good many fights," said the sick man. "He aint
the fellow he used to be."

"I--I hope he didn't get the worst of any of them."

"Well--yes. He rather got the worst of the last fight he was in. He got
into a row with three fellows,--cowboys, I knew them well,--and although
he managed to get away with all of them, one shot him through the arm
above the elbow, and it had to be taken off."

"Amputated?" said Tom.

"Yes, I suppose that's what you call it. Then Dan took to drink and lost
everything he had."

"Why should the loss of his arm send him to drink?"

"He couldn't shuffle the cards any more. He doesn't do anything now but
get drunk in the morning and then crawl into some hole and sleep it off;
and he has seen the time when he was worth a million."

Tom Mason was sorry to hear all this. He did not know what he was going
to do now that Black Dan was in no condition to help him. Who was he
going to get to grub-stake him and send him into the mountains to find a
gold mine? He knew that things were pretty high in Fort Hamilton, and
his two hundred dollars would not last him a great while.

"For a fellow who has never seen Black Dan you appear to take his
downfall very much to heart," said the sick man.

"Yes, I do. I was depending on him to see me through. I have a very nice
pin which is his own private property, and which I have been
commissioned to give into his keeping."

"Have you got it with you?"

Tom replied that the pin was in his baggage, and arose and went after
it. In a few minutes he returned with it in his hand, and was not a
little surprised at the exclamations of astonishment that arose from his
three friends when t