"What are you going to do?" Ned wanted to know.
"Get to the right spot as soon as possible and begin the search there," Tom answered. "You see, before we submerged as nearly as possible at the place where we thought the Pandora might be on the ocean bottom. From there we began making circles under the sea, enlarging the diameter each circuit.
"That didn't bring us anywhere, as you all know. Now we will start our series of circles with a different point as the center. It will bring us over an entirely different territory of the ocean floor."
"Just a moment," said Ned, as the conference was about to break up. "Is it possible, Tom, that in our first circling that we covered any of the ground which we may cover now? I mean will the new circles we propose making coincide at any place with the previous ones?"
"They won't exactly coincide," answered the young inventor. "You can't make circles coincide unless you use the same center and the same radius each time. But the two series of circles will intersect at certain places."
"I guess intersect is the word I wanted," admitted Ned.
"What's the idea?" Tom wanted to know.
"I'm thinking of Hardley," answered his chum. "He might assert that we purposely went to the wrong location with him to begin the search, and if we afterward find the wreck and the gold, he may claim a share."
"Not much he won't!" cried Tom.
"Bless my check book, I should say not!" exclaimed Mr. Damon.