Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers
or The Secret of Phantom Mountain
Barcoe Jenks, the nervous and eccentric financier, enlists Tom's aid to travel to Colorado and determine the method of making artificial (and perfect!) gemstones -- the secret of this method having been used as bait to defraud Jenks of a large sum of money.
ret in connection with the manufactured diamonds that he had to solve--that he had been defrauded of his rights-- and that a certain Phantom Mountain figured in it. But Tom, at that time, paid little attention to Mr. Jenks' talk. The time was to come, however, when he would attach much importance to it.
When this story opens, Tom was more interested in Mr. Barcoe Jenks than in any one else, and was wondering what he wanted to see him about. The young inventor could not quite understand how Mr. Track, the jeweler, could come back with a lad he suspected of being a thief, when the person who had acted so suspiciously, and who had knocked on the glass, was the queer man, Mr. Jenks.
"Yes, Tom I caught him," the jeweler went on. "I chased after him, and nabbed him. It was hard work, too, for I'm not a good runner. Now, you little rascal, tell me why you tried to rob my store?" and the diamond merchant shook the lad roughly.
"I--I didn't try to rob your store," was the timid answer.
"Wel
