"Nor I don't feel it," said Cardon. "If I'd been living in a city all the time it would have been different, but the open air keeps one alive. If I'd managed to keep that fortune, I'd have mostlike been dead by this time between wine and women. As it is, I'm liver than when I started—I don't care a hang for money."
"Well, why are you always hunting for it then?" asked Floyd, with a laugh.
"For the pleasure of the hunt," replied Cardon. "What makes a man hunt bears and spend thousands of dollars on guns and tents and guides, as I've seen some of these N' York chaps do? He doesn't love bears; he hunts them for the fun of the thing. Same with me and dollars; I don't love them, but I love hunting for them. It's the same with most men, I reckon. Well, what's your yarn?"
Floyd tipped the ash off his cigar. All this time, while listening to Cardon, he had been making up his mind. He, like Cardon, did not love money. He reckoned that his share of the pearling business and the pearls, even if he were to divide it equally with Cardon, would give him enough money to start in life at some more profitable business than sailoring. He was bitterly in need of friendship and a strong man's help, and he decided to tell Cardon everything, invoke his help, and offer him half shares.
"What I'm going to tell you," said he, "sounds like a yarn out of a book, but it's the truth. Some months ago I left 'Frisco, bound for the islands in a schooner owned by a man named Coxon. The Cormorant was her name. She was an unlucky ship." He told of the fire, of the island, of Schumer and Isbel, of the pearls—he told everything worth telling about the whole business; and, when he had finished, the effect of the yarn on Cardon was very evident, for that gentleman for once in his life was dumb.
"But that's not all," went on Floyd. "Something happened yesterday that puts a topknot on the whole business."
He told of the conversation he had overheard in Hakluyt's office, and of the act of treachery which he believed to be impending.
"That's clear enough," said Cardon; "they mean to do you up. Who is this Luckman?"
"I don't know him from Adam. Didn't even see him, only heard his voice."
"That's bad," said Cardon; "and you say the Southern Cross sails the day after to-morrow?"