"I may as well tell you, boy," he answered, "though you can't help
me. I've been a cursed fool, that's what's the matter."

"If you don't mind telling me," said Joe gently, "perhaps I can be of
service to you."

The man shook his head.

"I don't think you can," he said, "but I'll tell you, for all that.
Yesterday I came up from the mines with two thousand dollars. I was
about a year getting it together, and to me it was a fortune. I'm a
shoemaker by occupation, and lived in a town in Massachusetts, where
I have a wife and two young children. I left them a year ago to go
to the mines. I did well, and the money I told you about would have
made us all comfortable, if I could only have got it home."

"Were you robbed of it?" asked Joe, remembering his own experience.

"Yes; I was robbed of it, but not in the way you are thinking of. A
wily scoundrel induced me to enter a gambling-den, the Bella Union,
they call it. I wouldn't play at first, but soon the fascination
seized me. I saw a man win a hundred dollars, and I thought I could
do the same, so I began, and won a little. Then I lost, and played
on to get my money back. In just an hour I was cleaned out of all I
had. Now I am penniless, and my poor family will suffer for my
folly."

He buried his face in his hands once more and, strong man as he was,
he wept aloud.