get ideas: never to let adverse circumstances
discourage you, but to believe there is a way out of
every difficulty, which may be found by earnest
thought.

There were many points and projections of rock in the
walls of the crooked corridor in which Inga stood and
some of these rocks had become cracked and loosened,
although still clinging to their places. The boy picked
out one large piece, and, exerting all his strength,
tore it away from the wall. He then carried it to the
cavern and tossed it upon the burning coals, about ten
feet away from the end of the passage. Then he returned
for another fragment of rock, and wrenching it free
from its place, he threw it ten feet beyond the first
one, toward the opposite side of the cave. The boy
continued this work until he had made a series of
stepping-stones reaching straight across the cavern to
the dark passageway beyond, which he hoped would lead
him back to safety if not to liberty.

When his work had been completed, Inga did not long
hesitate to take advantage of his stepping-stones, for
he knew his best chance of escape lay in his crossing
the bed of coals before the rocks became so heated that
they would burn his feet. So he leaped to the first
rock and from there began jumping from one to the other
in quick succession. A withering wave of heat at once
enveloped him, and for a time he feared he would
suffocate before he could cross the cavern; but he held