"Worth while? Good Lord! I'd probably get a ten-thousand-dollar
order!"

"Very well. It's settled." Gray's decision had been quickly made.
Opportunity had knocked--he was not one to deny her admission, no
matter how queer her garb. A hundred thousand dollars' worth of
gems! The very figures intrigued him and--diamonds are readily
negotiable. There would be a natural risk attached to the handling
of so large an amount. A thousand things might happen to a
treasure chest of that size. Gray began to believe that his luck
had changed.

"Where does Mr. Briskow live?" he inquired.

"Out beyond Ranger, somewhere. But--"

"I'm going to visit that field, anyhow. This will give me an
excuse."

"Nonsense!" The jeweler did not like to have fun poked at him. For
some time he refused to take the offer seriously, and even when his
host insisted that he would enjoy the lark, he expostulated: "Why,
the idea is ridiculous! You--Calvin Gray, the financier, peddling
jewelry? Ha! Outside of the fact that you wouldn't, couldn't do it,
it's not the safest thing in the world to carry a small fortune in
stones through the oil fields."

"Of course you insure it against theft?"

"That's the point. We can't. Have you ever heard of 'high-