Detective Trivett, who was one of the four in
the airship that was now hovering over the Atlantic coast, about ten
miles below the summer resorts of which Asbury Park was one.

It was only a few hours after Tom had received the letter from Russia
informing him of the whereabouts of the kidnapped Russian, and he had
acted at once.

His father sanctioned the plan of going to the rescue in one of Tom's
several airships and, Mr. Damon, having been on hand, at once agreed to
go. Of course Ned went along, and they had picked up the private
detective in New York, where he was vainly seeking a clew to the
whereabouts of Mr. Petrofsky.

Now the young inventor and his friends were hovering over the sandy
stretch of coast that extends from Sandy Hook down the Atlantic
seaboard. They were looking for a small fishing hamlet on the outskirts
of which, so the Russian letter stated, was situated the lonely hut in
which Mr. Petrofsky was held a prisoner.

"Do you think you can pick it out from a distance, Tom?" asked Mr.
Damon, as the airship floated slowly along. It was not the big one they
intended taking on their trip to Siberia, but it was sufficiently large
to accommodate the four and leave room for Mr. Petrofsky, should they
succeed in rescuing him.

"I think so," answered the young inventor.

In the letter from Russia a comparatively accurate description of the
prisoner's hut had been given, and also some details about his guards.
For there is little goes on in political circles in the realm of the
Czar that is not known either to the spies of the government or those
of the opposition, and the latter had furnished Tom with reliable
information.

"That looks like the place," said Tom at length, when, after peering
steadily through a powerful telescope, during which time Ned steered
the ship, the young inventor "picked up" a fishing settlement. "There
is the big fish house, spoken of in the letter," he went on, "and the
Russians know a lot about fish. That house makes a good landmark. We'll
go down now, before they have a chance to see us."

The others thought this a good idea, and a little later the airship
sank to the ground amid a lonely stretch of sand dunes, about two miles
from the hamlet on the outskirts of which the prison hut was said to be
located.

"Now," said Tom, "we've got to decide on a plan of Campaign. It won't
do for all of us to go to the hut and make the rescue. Some one has got
to stay with the airs