Chapter XVIII. A Separation - Page 2

think?" the gold-seeker fairly shot forth.

"Not exactly," Tom replied.

"I think that you don't understand your business, Swift!" was the instant retort. "You pretend to be a navigator, or have men who are, and yet when I give you simple and explicit directions for finding a sunken wreck you can't do it, and you cruise all around looking for it like a dog that has lost the scent! You don't know your business, in my estimation!"

"Well, you are entitled to your opinion, of course," agreed Tom, and both Mr. Damon and Ned were surprised to see him so calm. "I admit we haven't found the wreck, and may not, for some time."

"Then why don't you admit you're incompetent?" cried Mr. Hardley.

"I don't see why I should," said Tom, still keeping calm. "But since you feel that way about it, I think the best thing for us to do is to separate."

"What do you mean?" stormed the other.

"I mean that I will set you ashore at the nearest place, and that all arrangements between us are at an end."

"All right then! Do it! Do it!" cried Mr. Hardley, shaking his fist, but at no one in particular. "I'm through with you! But this is your own decision. You broke the contract--I didn't, and I'll not pay a cent toward the expenses of this trip, Swift! Mark my words! I won't pay a cent! I'll claim the money I deposited in the bank, and I won't pay a cent!"

"I'm not asking you to!" returned Tom. with a smile that showed how he had himself in command. "You put up a bond, secured by a deposit, to insure your share of the expenses--yours and Mr. Damon's. Very well, we'll consider that bond canceled. I won't charge you a cent for this trip. But, mark this, Hardley: What I find from now on, is my own! You don't share in it!"

"You mean that--"

"I mean that if I discover the wreck of the Pandora and take the gold from her, that it is all my own. I will share it with Mr. Damon, provided he remains with me--"

"Bless my silk hat, Tom, of course I'll stay with you!" broke in the eccentric man.

"But you don't share with me," went on the young inventor, looking sternly at the gold-seeker. "What I find is my own!"

"All right--have it that way!" snapped the adventurer. "Set me ashore as soon as you can--the sooner the better. I'm sick of the way you do business!"

"Nothing like being honest!" murmured Ned. But, as a matter of fact, he was glad the separation had come. There had been a strain ever since Hardley came aboard. Mr. Damon, too, looked relieved, though a trifle worried. He had considerable at stake, and he stood to lose the money he had invested with Dixwell Hardley.

"This is final,"