Sitting down to consider
the situation Fitz-Norman's eye was caught by a gleam in the grass
beside him. In ten seconds he had completely lost his appetite and
gained one hundred thousand dollars. The squirrel, which had refused
with annoying persistence to become food, had made him a present of a
large and perfect diamond.
Late that night he found his way to camp and twelve hours later all
the males among his darkies were back by the squirrel hole digging
furiously at the side of the mountain. He told them he had discovered
a rhinestone mine, and, as only one or two of them had ever seen even
a small diamond before, they believed him, without question. When the
magnitude of his discovery became apparent to him, he found himself in
a quandary. The mountain was _a_ diamond--it was literally
nothing else but solid diamond. He filled four saddle bags full of
glittering samples and started on horseback for St. Paul. There he
managed to dispose of half a dozen small stones--when he tried a
larger one a storekeeper fainted and Fitz-Norman was arrested as a
public disturber. He escaped from jail and caught the train for New
York, where he sold a few medium-sized diamonds and received in
exchange about two hundred thousand dollars in gold. But he did not
dare to produce any exceptional gems--in fact, he left New York just
in time. Tremendous excitement had been created in jewellery circles,
not so much by the size of his diamonds as by their appearance in the
city from mysterious sources.
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