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."