The sudden appearance of a man in that lonely spot, his calm regard of the lads, his stealthy approach, which had made it possible for him to be almost upon them before they were aware of his presence, all this made them suspicious of danger. Tom gave a quick glance about, however, and saw no others--no Cossack soldiers, and as he looked a second time at the man he noted that he was poorly dressed, that his shoes were ragged, his whole appearance denoting that he had traveled far, and was weary and ill. "What do you make of this, Ned?" asked Tom, in a low voice. "I don't know what to make of it. He can't be an officer, in that rig, and he has no one with him. I guess we haven't anything to be afraid of. I'm going to 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.