The little laboratory was rather close and stuffy, so the door leading into the hall was opened for air. Mary looked out. She screamed, and turned quickly toward Tom.
“What’s the matter?” asked Tom instantly. “Is there—” He thought Greenbaum might be trying some other trick.
“Why is Koku armed with that big club and the other man with a gun?” asked Mary suspiciously. “Is there some danger? Oh, Tom——”
The memory of the kidnapping of the two young men came vividly into her mind.
“There’s danger—terrible danger!” exclaimed Helen. “I can tell by the boys’ faces,” she added, looking from Tom and Ned to Mary. “They are trying to hide it from us; but there’s danger, and I know it.”
As Ned remarked later, “the beans were spilled then and there,” and though he and Tom tried to put the girls and their parents off, there was no denying that something unusual was afoot. The upshot of it was that the whole story of the buried mines came out.
“Tom, you’ve got to give this thing up!” urged Mary, taking him by the arm. “It’s a wonderful invention, undoubtedly, but it isn’t worth your life, nor Ned’s. You must give it up! Let those men have it to destroy if they want to.”
“Never!” cried Tom. “I’m going through with it.”
Then followed earnest but useless pleadings on the part of the young ladies and their parents. Seeing how firm Tom was, Helen and Mary turned their attention to Ned, seeking to get him to prevail upon his chum to cast the invention aside. But Ned was as firm as his friend.
“No, I’m going ahead with it no matter what comes!” was Tom’s final decision. “But I’m going to set a trap for these scoundrels and I think I’ll catch them. The talking-picture machine must be perfected, in spite of these fellows. But they’ll find two can play at the same game. I’m going to set a trap!”