ask him what he wants."

Which Tom did in his plainest English. At once the man broke into a
stream of confused Russian, and he kept it up until Tom held up his
hand for silence.

"I'm sorry, but I can't understand you," said the young inventor. "I'll
call some one who can, though," and, raising his voice, he summoned
Ivan Petrofsky who, with Mr. Damon, was inside the airship doing some
small repairs.

"There's a Russian out here, Mr. Petrofsky," said Tom, "and what he
wants I can't make out."

The exile was quickly on the scene and, after a first glance at the
man, hurried up to him, grasped him by the hand and at once the two
were talking such a torrent of hard-sounding words that Tom and Ned
looked at each other helplessly, while Mr. Damon, who had come out,
exclaimed:

"Bless my dictionary! they must know each other."

For several minutes the two Russians kept up their rapid-fire talk and
then Mr. Petrofsky, evidently realizing that his friends must wonder at
it, turned to them and said:

"This is a very strange thing. This man is an escaped convict, as I
once was. I recognized him by certain signs as soon as I saw him,
though I had never met him before. There are certain marks by which a
Siberian exile can never be forgotten," he added significantly. "He
made his escape from the mines some time ago, and has suffered great
hardships since. The revolutionists help him when they can, but he has
to keep in concealment and travels from town to town as best he may. He
has heard of our airship, I suppose from inquiries the revolutionists
have been making in our behalf, and when he unexpectedly came upon us
just now he was not frightened, as an ordinary peasant would have been.
But he did not know I was aboard."

"And does he know you?" asked Tom. "Does he know you are trying to
rescue your brother?"

"No, but I will tell him."

There was another exchange of the Russian language, and it seemed to
have a surprising result. For, no sooner had Ivan Petrofsky mentioned
his brother, than the other, whose name was Alexis Borious seemed
greatly excited. Mr. Petrofsky was equally so at the reply his new
acquaintance made, and fairly shouted to Tom, Ned and Mr. Damon.

"Friends, I have unexpected good news! It is well that we met this man
or we would have gone many miles out of our way. My brother has been
moved to another mine since the revolutionists located him for me. He
is in a lonely district many miles from he