"Keep away! Don't you touch me! Don't you come near me!" he half whimpered.
Blake advanced to the opposite side of the desk, and spoke in a tone of cool raillery: "You're rattled. Better put up that gun. It might go off."
"It will in half a second!" snapped Ashton.
Blake leaned forward and transfixed him with a stare of cold contempt.
"You thief!" he said. "Your game is up. You sneak thief!"
Ashton lowered his pistol and cowered as though Blake had struck him.
"No, no! I'm not—I'm not! You haven't any proof—you can't prove it!"
"Proof?" growled Blake. "When I've known it ever since I came up before—knew it the first look. My bridge from shoe to peak—every girder, every rivet—and my truss! Not another bridge in the world has that truss. You dirty sneak thief!—Huh! you would, would you?"
Ashton had sought to raise and aim the pistol. This time Blake did not step back. Instead, he flung himself forward, and his hand closed in an iron grip on the wrist of the hand that held the pistol. The weapon fell from the paralyzed fingers.
Ashton made a frantic clutch with his left hand to regain the pistol, but he was jerked violently forward, up and over the desk. As he floundered across in a flurry of rustling, tearing maps and papers, he swore in shrill anger. Blake's left hand gripped his throat, His anger gave place to terror. He sought to scream, but the fingers tightened and throttled him. He was dragged across and down upon the floor, choking and gurgling. Blake bent lower.
"Lie still!" he ordered. "I'm going to let go your throat. If you squawk, I'll break your neck!"