boa and out to the stone
house, where he had managed to hide himself in the room above described
without his presence on the premises being suspected. One thing, however,
Ned did not know, and that was that Jimmie McGraw, full of life and
curious to know what was going on, had trained on after him and was now
watching the house from a thicket on the hillside.

Ned had heard a good deal of talk since hiding himself in the rear room,
much of which was of no account. Men who had delivered notes and messages
had come and gone. Col. Van Ellis seemed to be doing a general business
there. Some of the men who came appeared to be canal workmen, and these
left what seemed to be reports of some kind.

From a break in the wall Ned could hear all that was said and see a great
deal of what went on in the front room. At five o'clock a tall, dark,
slender man whose black hair was turning gray in places entered the front
room by way of the secret stairway in the side wall. He handed some papers
to Col. Van Ellis and seated himself without being asked to do so.

"What, as a whole, are the indications?" Van Ellis asked.

"Excellent," was the short reply.

"And the latest prospect?" asked Chester.

"In the valley, near Bohio."

"What have you found there?"

"Clay-slate, hornblende, emeralds."

"In large quantities?" asked Chester, anxiously.

"There is a fortune underground there," was the reply. "Green argillaceous
rock means something."

There was silence for some moments, during which Van Ellis pored over some
drawings on his desk, Chester walked the floor excitedly, Gostel regarded
the others with a sinister smile on his face, and Itto, the recent
arrival, sat watching all the others as a cat watches a mouse.

"And this territory will be under the Lake of Gatun?" Chester asked,
presently.

"Yes, very deep under the Lake of Gatun," was Itto's reply.

Again Van Ellis bent over the drawings, tracing on one with the point of a
pencil.

"There are millions here," he said. "We have only to stretch forth our
hands and take them."

"The wealth of a world," Itto observed.

The men talked together in Spanish for a long time, and Ned tried hard to
make something of the discussion, but failed. He was convinced, however,
that Chester was being urged and argued with by the others and was not
consenting to what they were proposing to him.

In half an hour a man who looked fully as Oriental in size, manner and
dress as Itto step