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 antic.i.p.ated. 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 swung into it and made his way to the main trunk of the tree, an ancient elm. It was no trick at all then for him to slide to the ground.
Then, silently as a cat, he tiptoed his way from the old stone house, with its occupants sleeping and snoring, blissfully unaware that Jack had stolen a march on them.
"Well, things have gone finely so far," he mused. "Now, what shall be the next step?"
He looked about him. The country was a wild one. There was no sign of a house, and, as far as he could see, there was nothing but an expanse of timber and rocks.
"This is a tough problem," thought the boy. "I"ve no idea where I am, or the points of the compa.s.s. If I go one way, I might come out all right, but then again I might find myself lost in the forest. Hanged if I know what to do."
But, realizing that it would not do to waste any time around the old house, Jack at length struck off down what appeared to have been, in bygone days, some sort of a wood road. It wound for quite a distance among the trees, but suddenly, to his huge delight, the boy beheld in front of him the broad white ribbon of a dusty highway.
Suddenly, too, he heard the sound of wheels and the rattle of a horse"s hoofs coming along at a smart rate.
"Good; now I can soon find out where I am," thought the boy, and he hurried forward to meet the approaching vehicle. It contained a pretty young woman, wearing a sunbonnet.
Jack had no hat to lift, but he made his best bow as the fair driver came abreast of him.
"I beg your pardon," he began, "but could you tell me----"
The young woman gave one piercing scream.
"Oh-h-h-h-h-h!" she cried, and gave her horse a lash with the whip that made it leap forward like an arrow. In a flash she was out of sight in a cloud of dust.
"Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Jack. "She must be crazy, or something, or else she"s the most bashful girl I ever saw."
He sat down on a rock at the side of the road to rest and waited for another rig or a foot pa.s.senger to come by. Before long he heard a sprightly whistle, and a barefooted boy, carrying a tin pail, and with a fish pole over his shoulder, appeared round a curve in the road.
"Now, I"ll get sailing directions," said Jack to himself, and then, as the boy drew near:
"Hullo, sonny! Can you tell me----"
The boy gave one look and then, dropping his can of bait, and his pole, fled with a howl of dismay.
"Hi! Stop, can"t you? What"s the matter with you?" shouted Jack. He ran after the boy at top speed. But the faster he ran the faster the youngster sped along the road.
"Oh-h-h-h-h! Help! Mum-muh!" he yelled, as he ran, in terrified tones.
At length Jack gave up the chase. He leaned against a fence and gave way to his indignation.
"Bother it all," he said. "What can be the matter with these people?
Everyone I speak to runs away from me, as if I had the plague or something. Anyhow, that youngster can"t be very far down this road. I guess I"ll keep right on after him, and then I"m bound to come to some place where there are some sensible folks."
As he a.s.sumed, it was not long before he came in sight of a neat little farm-house, standing back from the road in a grove of fine trees. He made his way toward it. In the front yard an old man was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g rose-bushes.
"Can you tell me----" began Jack.
The old man looked up. Then uttering an appalling screech, he ran for his life into the house. "Mandy! Mandy! Thar be a ghostess in the yard!"
he yelled, as he ran.
Jack looked after him blankly. What could be the matter?
CHAPTER XVII.
ONE MYSTERY SOLVED.
"Well, I"ll be jiggered!" exclaimed Jack. "What _can_ be the matter? It beats me. I----"
"Hey you, git out of thar. I don"t know what of critter ye be, but you scared my old man nigh ter death. Scat now, er I"ll shoot!"
Jack looked up toward an upper window of the farm-house, from which the voice, a high-pitched, feminine one, had proceeded. An old lady, with a determined face, stood framed in the embrasure. In her hands, and pointed straight at the mystified Jack, she held an ancient but murderous looking blunderbuss.
"It"s loaded with slugs an" screws, an" bra.s.s tacks," pleasantly observed the old lady. "Jerushiah!" this to someone within the room, "stop that whimperin". I"m goin" ter send it on its way, ghost or no ghost."
"But, madam----" stammered Jack.
"Don"t madam me," was the angry reply. "Git now, and git quick!"
"This is like a bad dream," murmured Jack, but there was no choice for him but to turn and go; "maybe it is a dream. If it is I wish I could wake up."
He turned into the hot, dusty road once more. He felt faint and hungry.
His mouth was dry, and he suffered from thirst, too. Before long he found a chance to slake this latter. A cool, clear stream, spanned by a rustic bridge, appeared as he trudged round a bend in the road.
"Ah, that looks good to me," thought Jack, and he hurried down the bank as fast as he could.
He bent over the stream at a place where an eddy made an almost still pool, as clear as crystal. But no sooner did his face approach the water than he gave a violent start. A hideous black countenance gazed up at him. Then, suddenly, Jack broke into a roar of laughter.