Suddenly, like an inspiration, Jack thought of a way in which he might free his captive hands. Naturally quick-witted, 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.