"I will gladly tell you the story," spoke Mr. Petrofsky, "for I am much
interested in inventions, and I formerly did something in that line
myself, and I have even made a small aeroplane, so you see I know the
need of platinum in a high power magneto."
"But where did you get such pure metal?" asked Tom. "I have never seen
it's equal."
"There is none like it in all the world," went on the Russian, "and
perhaps there never can be any more. I have only a small supply. But in
Siberia--in the lost mine--there is a large quantity of it, as pure as
this, needing only a little refining.
"Can't we get some from there?" asked the young inventor eagerly. "I
should think the Russian government would mine it, and export it."
"They would--if they could find it," said Ivan Petrofsky dryly, "but
they can't--no one can find it--and I have tried very hard--so hard, in
fact, that it is the reason for my coming to this country--that and the
desire to find and aid my brother, who is a Siberian exile."
"This is getting interesting," remarked Ned to Tom in a low voice, and
the young inventor nodded.
"My brother Peter, who is younger than I by a few years, and I, are the
last of our family," began Mr. Petrofsky, motioning Tom and Ned to take
chairs. "We lived in St. Petersburg, and early in life, though we were
of the nobility, we took up the cause of the common people.
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