Just when El Pasoan Ignacio Marquez thought his luck ran out in Vegas, Coloradoan Mitch Gilbert became his ace in the hole.

On Dec. 6, Marquez lost two envelopes each filled with $5,000 in cash - his gambling winnings from Caesars Palace - at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. Gilbert picked up the envelopes initially not knowing exactly what was in them. Once he found out it was money, he worked tirelessly to get the money back to Marquez. He succeeded two days before Christmas.

By that time, Marquez had lost all hope, thinking his luck had run out.

"I found out on the plane. I felt real, real bad," said Marquez, 54, who declined to be photographed for security reasons.

But while Marquez was on a plane back to El Paso, Gilbert, 55, was going through airport security in Las Vegas. He found the envelopes on the conveyor belt as he placed a plastic bins with his belonging to be X-rayed.

"I had no idea what was in those envelopes, but I was suspicious. I thought it might have been money," Gilbert said during a phone interview on Tuesday from Greenwood Village, Colo., where he works as a real estate agent for RE/MAX.

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