“Are you wounded, stranger?” Nick quickly demanded, as he studied the man’s pale face.

“Not much—­not badly, I think,” gasped Pylotte, trembling violently.  “But it’s lucky you came.  They’d surely have killed me.”

Nick noticed that he spoke with a slight foreign accent, and was a man of considerable physical prowess.

“There’s blood on your face,” said he.

“It came from one of them, I think,” said Pylotte, drawing his sleeve across his cheek to remove the stain.  “I must have wounded one of them.”

“It’s a pity you did not kill him,” said Nick, bluntly.  “Was it you who fired the gun?”

“Yes.  I tried to fire again, but one of them struck me down before I could do so.  The ruffians came upon me before I fairly realized it.”

“Do you know them?” inquired Chick.

“Only one of them, a man named John David,” replied Pylotte, now appearing to pull himself together.

“John David, eh?” grunted Nick.

“He has swindled me, and I—­I saw him at a theater to-night, and afterward followed him out here.”

“For what?  If he has swindled you, why didn’t you have him arrested at the theater?” demanded Nick.

“Well, I—­I wanted to learn where he lives.  He must have discovered that he was being followed, and then tried to do me up.”

Nick observed the speaker’s faltering manner, and it increased his curiosity.

“Why do you wish to know where he lives?” he demanded.

Pylotte hesitated, and shrugged his shoulders.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” said he, after a moment.

“Not believe you?”

“I hardly think so.”

“Suppose you tell me, and see,” suggested Nick, with a faint smile.

“I have no objection to telling you, none at all,” Pylotte now replied.  “The man I spoke of, John David, swindled me yesterday with two artificial diamonds.”

“Ah! is that so?” cried Nick, with a significant glance at Chick.  “What is your name, my man?”

“Jean Pylotte, sir.”

“Who are you, and where do you live?”

“I am a Frenchman by birth, and arrived in New York only this week.  My home is in Denver.  I am a diamond cutter by trade, and came here to buy some gems for a Denver woman of wealth, who wishes to obtain a certain size and quality.”

“Then you are a judge of diamonds?”

“One of the best,” Pylotte modestly admitted, with a faint smile.  “I am an expert judge of diamonds, and so it happened that I discovered the swindle of which I am a victim.”

“Then you bought a diamond of the man who said his name was John David, did you?”

“I bought two, sir,” nodded Pylotte.  “They appeared like natural and very perfect stones when I first examined them, but after subjecting them to more careful tests, I found them to be the most extraordinary imitations I ever beheld.”