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.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Fraser Confers with Perkins.
The eccentric methods which Cameron had employed since his return to The Front had put the people of Glengarry into a state of excitement and wild speculation, which was greatly interfering with the wonted quiet and decorum of its peaceably inclined citizens. While the House of Cariboo, as it was now generally called, neared completion, and the majestic columns which supported the high arched domes of its rotunda stood out in bold relief against the scaffolding surrounding the unfinished parts, extravagant reports were being circulated abroad in Glengarry, even reaching to the distant city, of the enormous expenditures made by Cameron on the mansion he was about to occupy.
As the undertakings of Cameron assumed form, and the motive for many of his peculiar trades with his neighbors became apparent, another individual of whom we have frequently spoken also began to figure conspicuously before the people of the county.
The purposes of Nick Perkins for the past few months had suffered so many humiliating defeats before his constituents at The Gore and his enemies at The Front, that even his sympathizers and old time henchmen of his town, of late had shunned meeting him as he went about at his home. Every note and mortgage which he held against the farmers and neighbors of the two towns had been paid back to him with interest to date, and in every case the proceeds had come to his debtors through the liberal wages paid by Cameron for work upon the undertakings he had put under way. Thirty thousand dollars had been paid out for various kinds of work done, either directly by Cameron, or through his friends, Blakely, Simpson or Ferguson. Happiness reigned supreme in the families of the two towns, and each neighbor felt that he could look the other full in the face with a frankness which meant freedom from the depressing coils of debt.