were
in the midst of a brilliant glow, for Ned had turned the current into
the great searchlight on the bow of the air craft, and the beams were
focused on our friends. Ned could now see the refugees, and in a moment
he sent the graceful craft down, bringing it to a halt on the ground
near Tom.

"In with you!" cried the lad. "She's all ready to start up again!"

"Come on!" yelled Tom to the others. "We're all right now, if you
hustle!"

"Bless my pin cushion!" gasped Mr. Damon, making a final spurt.

The three guards had halted in confusion on seeing the big, black bulk
of the airship, and when they noted the gleaming of the searchlight
they must have realized that their chances were gone. They made a rush,
however, but it was too late. 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. He had been kept a close prisoner in the lonely
hut, and each day he had expected to be taken back to serve out his
sentence in Siberia.

"Another day would have been too late," he told Tom, when he had
thanked the young inventor over and over again, "for the papers would
have arrived, and the last obstacle to taking me back to Russia would
have been removed. They dare