ted, the emergency he found
himself facing had made his mind more active than usual.

"That grindstone," he thought. "I can work the treadle with my foot,
while I stand backward to it. If I hold the rope against the sharp edge
of the stone it ought to cut through in a very short time."

It was quite a task to locate the grindstone in the darkness without
making a noise. But at last Jack, by dint of feeling softly along the
walls, located it. Then he turned his back to the machine and put his
foot on the treadle. As the wheel began to turn he pressed the rope that
bound his hands against the rough stone. In ten minutes he was free.

"Now for the next move," counseled the boy. "I've got to do whatever I
decide upon quickly. If I don't escape, and that gang finds how I've
freed my wrists, they'll shackle me hand and foot, and I'll not get
another chance to get away. If it was only daylight I'd stand a much
better opportunity of getting out."

There was the door, but to try that was out of the question. Jack had
heard it locked and the key turned. The window? It was too small for a
big, well-grown boy like Jack to creep through. He had noted that during
the time the door was open and his prison was lighted by the rays of the
lantern.

"There's that fireplace," thought the boy, "that's about the last
resort. I wonder----"

He located the big, old-fashioned chimney, built of rough stones and
full of nooks and crannies, without trouble. Getting inside it on the
hearthstone he looked upward; it was open to the sky and at the top he
could see a faint glow.

"It's getting daylight," he exclaimed to himself.

The next moment he noticed that right across the top of the chimney was
the stout branch of a tree.

"If I could get up the chimney that branch would afford me a way of
getting to the ground," he thought.

"By Jove! I believe I could do it," he muttered, as the light grew
stronger and he saw how roughly the interior of the chimney was built.
"It's not very high, and those rough stones make a regular ladder."

As time was pressing, Jack began the ascent at once. For a lad as active
as he was, it proved even more easy than he had anticipated. But long
before he reached the top he was covered from head to foot with soot,
although, oddly enough, that thought never occurred to him. At length,
black as a negro in mourning, he reached the top of the chimney and
grasped the tree branch he had noticed from below.

He sw