Over the side of the craft scrambled Tom,
Mr. Damon, the detective and Ivan Petrofsky, and an instant later Ned
had sent it aloft. The race was over, and the young inventor and his
friends had won.
"You're the stuff!" cried Tom to Ned, as he went with his chum to the
pilot house to direct the progress of the airship. "It's lucky you came
for us. We never could have made the distance. We left the ship too far
off."
"That's what I thought after you'd gone," replied his chum. "So I
decided to come and meet you. I had to go slowly so as not to pass you
in the darkness."
They were speeding off now, and Ned, turning the beams of the great
searchlight below them, picked up the three guards who were gazing
helplessly aloft after their fast disappearing prisoner.
"You're having your first ride in an airship, Mr. Petrofsky," remarked
Tom, when they had gone on for some little distance. "How do you like
it?"
"I'm so excited I hardly know, but it's quite a sensation. But how in
the world did you ever find me to rescue me?"
Then they told the story of their search, and the unexpected clew from
Russia. In turn the exile told how he had been attacked at the breakfast
table one morning by the three spies--the very men who had been
shadowing him--and taken away secretly, being drugged to prevent his
calling for help.
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