In due time they were landed in New York, and Mr. and Mrs. Nestor accompanied Tom to Shopton. Mr. Damon, with many blessings also accompanied them, going to his home in Waterfield. Later it was learned that the other boats from the Resolute had been picked up, and the sailors and guests were all saved.
Of course, as soon as our friends had been rescued by the steamer, the wireless operator aboard her, with whom Tom soon struck up an acquaintance, sent messages to the relatives of the castaways, apprising them of their safety.
And the joy of Mary Nestor, when she found that it was Tom who had saved her parents, can well be imagined. As for our hero, well, he was glad too—for Mary’s sake.
“I won’t forget my promise to you, Tom Swift,” said Mr. Barcoe Jenks, as he parted from the young inventor, and what the promise was will be told in the next volume of this series, to be called: “Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers; or, The Secret of Phantom Mountain.” In that Tom is destined to have many more surprising adventures, as is also Mr. Damon, who learned new ways to call down blessings on himself and his possessions.
And now, for a time, we will take leave of the young inventor and also of his many friends, who never ceased to wonder over Tom Swift’s skill with the wireless.
TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS
or, THE SECRET OF PHANTOM MOUNTAIN
CHAPTER I
A SUSPICIOUS JEWELER
“Well, Tom Swift, I don’t believe you will make any mistake if you buy that diamond,” said the jeweler to a young man who was inspecting a tray of pins, set with the sparkling stones. “It is of the first water, and without a flaw.”
“It certainly seems so, Mr. Track. I don’t know much about diamonds, and I’m depending on you. But this one looks to be all right.”
“Is it for yourself, Tom?”
“Er—no—that is, not exactly,” and Tom Swift, the young inventor of airships and submarines, blushed slightly.
“Ah, I see. It’s for your housekeeper, Mrs. Baggert. Well, I think she would like a pin of this sort. True, it’s rather expensive, but—”
“No, it isn’t for Mrs. Baggert, Mr. Track,” and Tom seemed a bit embarrassed.
“No? Well, then, Tom—of course it’s none of my affair, except to sell you a good stone, But if this brooch is for a young lady, I can’t recommend anything nicer. Do you think you will take this; or do you prefer to look at some others?”
“Oh, I think this will do, Mr. Track. I guess I’ll take—”
Tom’s Words were interrupted by a sudden action on the part of the jeweler. Mr. Track ran from behind the showcase and hastened toward the front door.
“Did you see him, Tom?” he cried. “I wonder which way he went?”
“Who?” asked the lad, following the shopkeeper.
“That man. He’s been walking up and down in front of my place for the last ten minutes—ever since you’ve been in here, in fact, and I don’t like his looks.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing much, except to stare in here as if he was sizing my place up.”
“Sizing it up?”
“Yes. Getting the lay of the land, so he or some confederate could commit a robbery, maybe.”
“A robbery? Do you think that man was a thief?”
“I don’t know that he was, Tom, and yet a jeweler has to be always on the watch, and that isn’t a joke, either, Tom Swift. Swindlers and thieves are always on the alert for a chance to rob a jewelry store, and they work many games.”
“I didn’t notice any particular man looking in here,” said Tom, who still held the diamond brooch in his hand.
“Well I did,” went on the jeweler. “I happened to glance out of the window when you were looking at the pins, and I saw his eyes staring in here in a suspicious manner. He may have a confederate with him, and, when you’re gone, one may come in, and pretend to want to look at some diamonds. Then, when I’m showing him some, the other man will enter, engage my attention, and the first man will slip out with a diamond ring or pin. It’s often done.”
“You seem to have it all worked out, Mr. Track,” observed the lad, with a smile. “How do you know but what I’m in with a gang of thieves, and that I’m only pretending to want to buy a diamond pin?”
“Oh, I guess I haven’t known you, Tom Swift, ever since you were big enough to toddle, not to be sure about what you’re up to. But I certainly didn’t like the looks of that man. However, let’s forget about him. He seems to have gone down the street, and, after all, perhaps I was mistaken. Just wait until I show you a few more styles before you decide. The young lady may like one of these,” and the jeweler went to another showcase and took out some more trays of brooches.
“What makes you think she’s a young lady, Mr. Track?” asked the lad.
“Oh, it’s easy guessing, Tom. We jewelers are good readers of character. I can size up a young fellow coming in here to buy an engagement or a wedding ring, as soon as he enters the door. I suppose you’ll soon be in the market for one of those, Tom, if all the reports I hear about you are true—you and a certain Mary Nestor.”
“I—er—I think I don’t care for any of these pins,” spoke Tom, quickly, with a blush. “I like the first lot best. I think I’ll take the one I had in my hand when that man alarmed you. Ha! That’s odd! What did I do with it?”
Tom looked about on the showcase, and glanced down on the floor. He had mislaid the brooch, but the jeweler, with a laugh, lifted it out of a tray a moment later.
“I saw you lay it down,” he said. “We jewelers have to be on the watch. Here it is. I’ll just put it in a box, and—”
With an exclamation, Mr. Track gave a hasty glance toward his big show window. Tom looked up, and saw a man’s face peering in. At the sight of it, he, too, uttered a cry of surprise.
The next instant the man outside knocked on the glass, apparently with a piece of metal, making a sharp sound. As soon as he heard it, the jeweler once more sprang from behind the showcase, and leaped for the door crying:
“There’s the thief! He’s trying to cut a hole through my show window and reach in and get something! It’s an old trick. I’ll get the police! Tom, you stay here on guard!” and before the lad could utter a protest, the jeweler had opened the door, and was speeding down the street in the gathering darkness.
Tom stared about him in some bewilderment. He was left alone in charge of a very valuable stock of jewelry, the owner of which was racing after a supposed thief, crying:
“Police! Help! Thieves! Stop him, somebody!”
“This is a queer go,” mused Tom. “I wonder who that man was? He looked like somebody I know, and yet I can’t seem to place his face. I wonder if he was trying to rob the placer Maybe there’s another one—a confederate—around here.”
This thought rather alarmed Tom, so he went to the door, and looked up and down the street. He could see no suspicious characters, but in the direction in which the jeweler was running there was a little throng of people, following Mr. Track after the man who had knocked on the window.
“I wish I was there, instead of here,” mused the lad. “Still I can’t leave, or a thief might come in. Perhaps that was the game, and one of the gang is hanging around, hoping the store will be deserted, so he can enter and take what he likes.”
Tom had read of such cases, and he at once resolved that he would not only remain in the jewelry shop, but that he would lock the door, which he at once proceeded to do. Then he breathed easier.
The town of Shopton, in the outskirts of which Tom lived with his father, and where the scene above narrated took place, was none too well lighted at night, and the lad had his doubts about the jeweler catching the oddly-acting man, especially as the latter had a good start.
“But some one may head him off,” reasoned Tom. “Though if they do catch him, I don’t see what they can prove against him. Hello, here I am carrying this diamond pin around. I might lose it. Guess I’ll put it back on the tray.”
He replaced in the proper receptacle one of the pins he had been examining when the excitement occurred.
“I wonder if Mary will like that?” he said, softly. “I hope she does. Perhaps it would be better if she could come here herself and pick out one—”
Tom’s musing was suddenly interrupted by a sharp tattoo on the glass door of the jewelry shop. With a start, he looked up, to see staring in on him the face of the man who had been there before—the man of whom the jeweler was even then in chase.
“Why—why——” stammered Tom.
The man knocked again.
“Tom—Tom Swift!” he called. “Don’t you know me?”
“Know you—you?” repeated the lad.
“Yes—don’t you remember Earthquake Island—how we were nearly killed there—don’t you remember Mr. Jenks?”
“Mr. Jenks?”
Tom was so startled that he could only repeat words after the strange man, who was talking to him from outside the glass door.
“Yes, Mr. Jenks,” was the reply. “Mr. Barcoe Jenks, who makes diamonds. I saw you in the store about to buy a diamond—I wanted to tell you not to—I’ll give you a better diamond than you can buy—I just arrived in this place—I must have a private talk with you—Come out—I’ll share a wonderful secret with you.”
A flood of memory came to Tom. He did recall the very strange man who walked around Earthquake Island—where Tom and some friends had been marooned recently—walked about with a pocketful of what he said were diamonds. Now Barcoe Jenks was here.
“I must see you privately, Tom Swift,” went on Mr. Jenks, as he once more tapped on the glass. “Don’t waste money buying diamonds, when you and I can make better ones. Where can I have a talk with you? I—” Mr. Jenks suddenly looked down the dimly-lighted street. “They’re coming back!” he cried. “I don’t want to be seen. I’ll call at your house later tonight—be on the watch for me—until then—good-by!”
He waved his hand, and was gone in an instant. Tom stood staring at the glass door. He hardly knew whether to believe it or not—perhaps it was all a dream.
He pinched himself to make sure that he was awake. Very substantial flesh met his thumb and finger, and he felt the pain.
“I’m awake all right,” he murmured. “But Barcoe Jenks here—and still talking that nonsense about his manufactured diamonds. I think he must be crazy. I wonder—”
Once more the lad’s musing was interrupted. He heard a murmur of excited voices outside the store, on the street. Then the door of the jewelry shop was tried. Mr. Track’s face was pressed against the glass.
“Open the door! Let me in, Tom!” he called. “I’ve caught the thief,” and as the lad unlocked the portal he saw that the jeweler held by the arm a ragged lad. “Ah; you scoundrel! I’ve caught you!” cried the diamond merchant, shaking the small chap, while Tom looked on, more mystified than ever.
CHAPTER II
A MIDNIGHT VISIT
While Mr. Track, the jeweler, and several citizens, attracted by the chase after the supposed thief, are crowded into the store, anxious to hear explanations of the strange affair, I will take the opportunity to tell you something of Tom Swift, the lad who is to figure in this story.
Many of you have already made his acquaintance, when he has been speeding about in his airship or fast electric runabout, and to others we will state that our hero first made his bow to the public in the book called “Tom Swift and His Motor-Cycle,” the initial volume of this series.
In that story there was related how Tom made the acquaintance of an odd individual, named Mr. Wakefield Damon, who was continually blessing himself, some part of his anatomy, or his possessions. Mr. Damon was riding a motor-cycle, and it started to climb a tree, to his pain and fright. Afterward Tom purchased the machine, and had many adventures on it, including a chase after a gang of men who had stolen a valuable patent model belonging to Mr. Swift.
Mr. Swift, and his son were both inventors. They lived together in a fine house in the suburbs of Shopton, New York, and with them dwelt Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper (for Tom’s mother was dead), and also Garret Jackson, an expert engineer, who aided the young inventor and his father in perfecting many machines.
There was also another semi-member of the household, to wit, Eradicate Sampson, an eccentric colored man, who owned a mule called Boomerang. Eradicate did odd jobs around the place, and the mule assisted his owner—that is when the mule felt like it.
In the second volume of the series, entitled “Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat,” there was related the incidents following a pursuit after a gang of unprincipled men, who sought to get Possession of some of Mr. Swift’s patents, and it was while in this boat that Tom, his father, and a friend, Ned Newton, rescued from Lake Carlopa a Mr. John Sharp, who fell from his burning balloon. Mr. Sharp was a skilled aeronaut, and after his recovery he joined Tom in building a big airship, called the Red Cloud. Tom’s adventures in this craft are set down in detail in the third volume of the series, called “Tom Swift and His Airship.” Not only did he and Mr. Sharp and Mr. Damon make a great trip, but they captured some bank robbers, and incidentally cleared themselves from the imputation of having looted the vault of seventy-five thousand dollars, which charge was fostered by a certain Mr. Foger, and his son Andy, who was Tom’s enemy.
Not satisfied with having conquered the air, Tom and his father set to work to gain a victory over the ocean. They built a boat that could navigate under water, and, in the fourth book of the series, called “Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat,” you will find an account of how they went under the ocean to secure a sunken treasure, and the fight they had with their enemies who sought to get it away from them. They went through many perils, not the least of which was capture by a foreign warship.
In the fifth book, entitled “Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout,” there was told the story of a wonderfully speedy electric automobile the young inventor constructed, and how he made a great race in it, and saved from ruin a bank, in which his father and Mr. Damon were interested.
Tom’s ability as an inventor had, by this time, become well known. One day, as related in a volume called “Tom Swift and His Wireless Message,” he received a letter from a Mr. Hosmer Fenwick, of Philadelphia, asking his aid in perfecting an airship which the resident of the Quaker City had built, but which would not work. In his small monoplane, the Butterfly, Tom and Mr. Damon went to Philadelphia, as Mr. Damon was acquainted with Mr. Fenwick.
Tom carefully inspected the Whizzer which was the name of Mr. Fenwick’s airship, and, after some difficulties, succeeded in getting the electric craft in shape to make a flight.
Tom, Mr. Damon and Mr. Fenwick started to make a trip to Cape May in the Whizzer, but were caught in a terrific storm, and blown out to sea. The wind became a hurricane, the airship was disabled, and wrecked in mid-air. When it fell to earth it landed on one of the small West Indian islands, but what was the terror of the three castaways to find that the island was subject to earthquake shocks.
But the earth-tremors were not the only surprise in store for Tom and his two friends, On the island they found five men and two ladies, who, by strange chance, had been stranded there when the yacht Resolute, owned by Mr. George Hosbrook, was wrecked in the same storm that disabled the airship. Mr. Hosbrook, a millionaire, was taking a party of friends to the West Indies.
When the castaways (among whom were Mr. and Mrs. Amos Nestor, parents of Mary Nestor, a girl of whom Tom was very fond) found that there was danger of the island being destroyed in an earthquake, they were in despair. There seemed no way of being rescued, as the island was out of the line of regular ship travel.
Tom, however, was resourceful. With the electrical apparatus from the wrecked airship, he built a wireless plant, and sent messages for help, broadcast over the ocean.
They were finally heard, and answered, by an operator on board the steamer Camberanian, which came on under forced draught, and rescued Tom and his friends. It
was only just in time, for, no sooner had they gotten aboard the steamer in lifeboats, than the whole island was destroyed by an earthquake shock.
But Tom, the parents of Mary Nestor, Mr. Damon, Mr. Fenwick, and all the others, got safely home. Among the survivors from the yacht Resolute was a Mr. Barcoe Jenks, who now, most unexpectedly, had confronted Tom through the glass window of the jewelry store. Mr. Jenks was a peculiar man. Tom discovered this on Earthquake Island. Mr. Jenks carried with him some stones which he said were diamonds. He asserted that he had made them, but Tom did not know whether or not to believe this.
When it seemed that the castaways would not be saved Mr. Jenks offered Tom a large sum in these same diamonds for some plan whereby he might escape the earthquakes. Mr. Jenks said there was a certain secret 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.
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