The elder Pulsifer pointed to the inventor, while the younger covered him with the revolver. One of the latter's bediamonded fingers was crooked on the trigger as if he longed to pull it.
Instantly Carl Schultz, Silas and Hank, who had all three started forward at the command, seized and held Mr. Varian tightly, while the younger Pulsifer, still with his revolver in hand, tapped the inventor's coat to find the hiding-place of the papers.
"Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly, with a cry of triumph. A crisp, crackling sound had rewarded his search.
An instant later, from a secret pocket in the inventor's coat, he had drawn forth a flat bundle of papers. The two Pulsifers, their eyes shining greedily, scanned them closely beneath the lamp, and then uttered what was a perfect howl of baffled rage.
The blueprints of the breech-block, without which the gun would be useless and the formula so much waste-paper, were not there.
"Look here, Varian," snarled the elder Pulsifer, "we've been pretty lenient with you, so far. We intend to be so no longer. Where are those blueprints?"
"Where you will never get them," bravely replied the inventor.
"You are overconfident, my friend," sneered the elder Pulsifer. "We not only will get them, but by your own lips you will tell us where to go to acquire them."
If the faces of the Pulsifers had borne an evil look before, they became as avid as those of vultures now.