nswered Tom. "Cleaning up
the treasure ship. You might as well save your money though, for we
have all the gold there is!"

"Impossible!" cried the now irate man. "You cannot have found the
Pandora!"

"That's just what we did, though," answered Tom. "And, for your
information, I'll say that we took all the gold we found, though it was
considerably less than you stated."

"How dare you?" stormed the adventurer. "I'll have the law on you for
this!"

"I guess you forget," replied Tom, "that we parted company at your
request and that I told you I was on my own. Finding is keeping. I
didn't find what I expected to, and, on the other hand, I got something
I didn't look for."

"What do you mean?"

"The Pandora was rightly named," went on Tom. "If you recall the old
story, Pandora had a box of treasures. They all flew out except Hope,
which remained in the bottom. Well, most of the gold seems to have
flown away, but we found a box on the Pandora. What's in it I don't
know yet, as I haven't opened it. Still, if it doesn't contain more
than Hope I shall be disappointed."

The face of Hardley showed the rage felt.

"Give me that box! Give me that box!" he cried, shaking his fist at Tom.

"Not today," was the cool answer of the young inventor. "I may let you
know what I find in it if you leave your address. Goodbye!"

Tom waved his hand, gave orders to close the hatches and submerge the
M. N. 1, and a few moments later the sea closed over her, leaving the
other vessel to grapple uselessly for the treasure-ship.

"What are you going to do, Tom?" asked Ned of his chum, as they were
all gathered in the main cabin half an hour later.

"Head for home as soon as we can. I've had enough of this, and I want
to get at something else I have in mind. But first I'm going to see
what's in this box."

It required the strength of Koku to open the small steel box, but when
it was torn apart, for the combination was impossible to guess at, all
that was seen were bundles of papers. The case having been hermetically
closed, no water had penetrated it, though it had been submerged a long
time.

"What are they?" asked Ned of his chum.

Tom did not answer for a moment. Then having quickly examined the
papers, he cried:

"We've struck it!"

"What?" they all wanted to know.

"The very thing Hardley was after. These are the missing papers in the
oil-well deal--the papers that prove Barton Keith has a half share in
property wort