Chapter XX - Making the Diamonds

"What's that noise?" asked Tom, as their guide flashed the lantern to show them the way.

"That's the men getting ready to make diamonds, I guess," was the answer. "You see it takes quite a while to get the stuff ready. I don't know what they use--they never tell me any of their secrets."

"Oh, I know the ingredients well enough," said Mr. Jenks, "but I don't know the secret of how they apply the terrific heat and pressure necessary to fuse the materials into diamonds."

"Well, you'll soon know," declared Bill Renshaw. "Of course it isn't always successful. I've known 'em to try half a dozen times before they got any diamonds big enough to satisfy 'em. They gave me some of the small ones when I asked for my wages.

"How did you come to get in with these men?" asked Tom, curious to understand how a person seemingly as honest as Renshaw appeared to be had cast his lot in with the men who had broken faith with Mr. Jenks.

"Oh, I've lived around these parts all my life," was the answer. "I knew of this cave before these diamond fellers came to it. In fact, I showed it to 'em. It was several years ago that a party of men who were prospecting around here came to me and asked if I knew of a small cave near the top of a high mountain, where lightning storms were frequent. I told them about Phantom Mountain, as it was called then, and also of this cave. If there's any place where they have worse lightning storms than here, I'd like to know it. They scare me, sometimes, like the night when that landslide happened, and I'm sort of used to 'em.

"Well, I took these men to the cave, and they hired me as a sort of lookout. Then they began their work, and at first I didn't know what they were up to, but finally I caught on. Then Mr. Jenks came, and disappeared mysteriously, though then I didn't know that they had played a trick on him. I was outside most of the time, pretending I was the ghost. So that's how I came to get in with 'em, and I wish I was out."

"You soon will be, I think," declared Mr. Jenks. "But won't our talking be heard by the men?"

"No danger. There is a thick wall between this part of the cave, and the part where they live and work. I'll soon have you well hid, and then you wait until I come back."

"What about Munson?" asked Tom. "He is evidently on his way here to tell his confederates about us."

"He won't know what has happened to us," said Mr. Jenks, "and he won't see anything of us. I guess we're safe enough."

Through the dark passage they followed Bill Renshaw until he came to a halt in a place that suddenly widened and broadened into a good-sized cave.

"Here's your stopping place," said the former ghost. "Now if you follow that