"I'm with you!" cried Ned. "Jove! Wouldn't it be great if we could rescue him? They can't have gotten very far with him." "I'm afraid they have quite a start on us," admitted Tom with a dubious shake of his head, "but as long as they're in the United States we have a chance. If ever they get him on Russian soil it's all up with him." "Come on then!" cried Ned. "Let's get busy. What's the first thing to do?" "Look for clews," replied Tom. "We'll begin at the top of the house and work down. It's lucky we came when we did, for every minute counts." Then the two plucky lads began their search for the kidnapped Russian exile. Had those who took him away seen the mere youths who thus devoted themselves to the task, they might have laughed in contempt, but those who know Tom Swift and his sturdy chum, know that two more resourceful and brave lads would be hard to find. CHAPTER V A CLEW FROM RUSSIA "Nothing much up here," remarked Tom, when he and Ned had gone all over the second floor twice. "That scrap of paper, which put me on to the fact that some one from the Russian government had been here, is about all. They must have taken all the documents Mr. Petrofsky had." "Maybe he didn't have any," suggested Ned. "If he was wise he'd get rid of them when he knew he was being shadowed, as he told us. Perhaps that was why they broke up the furniture, searching for hidden papers, or they may have done it out of spite because they didn't find anything. But we might as well go downstairs and look there." But the first floor was equally unproductive of clews, save those already noted, which showed, at least so Tom believed, that Mr. Petrofsky had been surprised and overpowered while at breakfast. "Now for outside!" cried the young inventor. "We'll see if we can figure out how they got him away." There were plenty of marks in the soft ground and turf, which was still damp from the night's rain, though it was now afternoon. Unfortunately, however, in approaching the house after leaving the aeroplane, Ned and Tom had not thought to exercise caution, and, not suspecting anything wrong, they had stepped on a number of footprints left by the kidnappers. But for all that, they saw enough to convince them that several men had been at the lonely house, for there were many marks of shoes. It was out of the question, however, to tell which were those of Mr. Petrofsky and which those of his captors. "They might have carried him out to a carriage they had in waiting," suggested Ned. "Let's go out to the front gate and look in the road. They hardly would bring the carriage up to the door." "Good idea," commented Tom, and they hurried to the main thoroughfare that passed the Russian's house. "Here they are!" cried Ned, who was in the lead. "There's been a carriage here as sure as you're a foot high and it's a rubber-tired one too." "GOOD!" cried Tom admiringly. "You're coming right along in your detective training. How do you make that out?"