“Next they demanded that I give them a large sum, which I had promised when they showed me, conclusively, that they could make diamonds. I refused to do this until I had seen some of the precious stones, and they agreed that this was fair, but said I would have to wait a few days.
“Well, I waited, and, all that while, I was virtually a prisoner in the cave. All I could learn was that it was in the midst of a great range, near the top, and that one of the peaks was called Phantom Mountain. Why, I did not learn until later.
“At last one night, during a terrific thunder storm, the leader of the diamond makers—Folwell—announced that I could now see the stones made. The men had been preparing their chemicals for some days previous. I was taken into a small chamber of the cave, and there saw quite a complicated apparatus. Part of it was a great steel box, with a lever on it.
“We will let you make some diamonds for yourself,” Folwell said to me, and he directed me to pull the lever of the box, at a certain signal. The signal came, just as a terrific crash of thunder shook the very mountain inside of which we were. The box of steel got red-hot, and when it cooled off it was opened, and was given a handful of white stones.
“Were they diamonds?” asked Tom, eagerly.
Mr. Jenks held out one hand. In the palm glittered a large stone—ostensibly a diamond. In the rays of the moon it showed all the colors of the rainbow—a beautiful gem. “That is one of the stones I made—or rather that I supposed I had made,” went on Mr. Jenks. “It is one of several I have, but they have not all been cut and polished as has this one.
“Naturally I was much impressed by what I saw, and, after I had made certain tests which convinced me that the stones in the steel box were diamonds, I paid over the money as I had promised. That was my undoing.”
“How?”
“As soon as the men got the cash, they had no further use for me. The next I remember is eating a rude meal, while we discussed the future of making diamonds. I knew nothing more until I found myself back in the small hotel at Indian Ridge, whence I had gone some time previous, with the men, to the cave in the mountain.”
“What happened?” asked Tom, much surprised by the unexpected outcome of the affair.