“Ah!” cried Frank. “Then you are a convict?”
“Sentenced to exile for a crime of which I am not guilty!” replied the poor fellow. “Have mercy upon me!”
“You are right we will!” cried Frank, who was well familiar with the peculiarities of Russian justice.
“Have courage, my friend!”
“Bejabers, hang on to the rope!”
Barney swung it aloft and sent it circling out into the river. It fell with accuracy across the raft.
The exile grasped it and in a few moments the raft was pulled to the shore. He staggered up the river bank.
Certainly he was an object of pity at that moment. Wretched, disheveled and pallid he looked a fit subject for a hospital.
The voyagers would have been heartless indeed to have refused him aid.
For aught they knew he might be a hardened criminal. But Frank Reade, Jr., took a good look at his face and decided vastly in his favor.