CHAPTER XXII.
The Mystery of the Corner Stones.
Blakely, with the neighbors whom he employed, had completed the excavations for the foundation walls and hauled the stone and mortar in readiness for the masons. Four squares of granite had been drawn to The Nole from the railroad station, and it was whispered among the workmen that their employer would personally direct the setting of the corner stones.
For several days, four of the master masons were engaged in carefully cutting into the center of each of the squares of granite a bowl-shaped cavity. Cameron, who had usually busied himself in other things which kept him away from The Nole, came frequently now to inspect the mysterious hollows being made in the granite boulders.
Soon the work of the masons was completed; then by the aid of crane and derrick, they lowered into position the corner stones just as the hour arrived for labor to cease. Cameron remained till the last man had gone, examining the granite blocks, which he found were placed securely in position, resting upon their cement foundation.
Next morning when the men came to resume work, they saw two others there before them, Cameron and the tall, erect figure of Donald Ban, his lawyer friend. The wonder at finding their employer so early at the works was quickly followed by a second surprise, more startling than the first. The cavities in the corner stones had been filled during the night and a layer of cement covered the tops of the hollow openings and was spread evenly with the surface of the granite rock.
“Lay the wall, men,” Cameron ordered in his calm, inflexible voice. “We wish to remain here till the corner stones have been walled under.”
At noon hour the burden of the discussion among the assembled laborers was to ascribe a reason for Cameron and the lawyer being among them in the morning. In the midst of the debate, an exclamation of delight came from one of their number, who had been apart from his fellows in the basement, and he held up to view a ten-dollar gold piece he had found in the dirt at his feet. Immediately a mad hunt was in progress around the foundation walls, and particularly at the corner stones. Other gold pieces were discovered, and among them a twenty-dollar gold piece was taken from the miniature gold diggings.
When the excitement had abated somewhat, the foreman of the gang of laborers, with a wise and important look on his face, the while assuming a dramatic pose, pointed to the corner stones, and in tragic tones, he said: “Boys, they are full of ’em!” and a quiet akin to that resting over a haunted house fell upon the superstitious laborers.
The trick had worked well, for very soon the whole county would hear that their mysterious neighbor had buried a fortune in gold in each corner stone of the House of Cariboo. Cameron quickly heard of the gold finds made up at the works at The Nole and he smiled with great pleasure when he thought of the look of blank despair which would come over the face of Nick Perkins, on his finding that the worthless bits of scrap iron which filled the cavities of the four corners of the mansion were all that represented the vast sums in gold that he imagined reposed in the foundation walls of his purchase.