MENACED BY A DOUBLE PERIL
"LOOK out!" roared the warning voice of the head melter.
Steve turned just in time to see a wall of golden metal almost towering over him. Even his quick mind did not grasp the meaning of the scene until it was too late. His muscles refused to obey his command, and for once in his life the Iron Boy stood with a sensation in his heart that was not far removed from fear. He did not know which way to turn for safety, even had he possessed the strength to escape from his perilous position.
Yells and shouts of warning from all sides merely served to confuse him the more. Had it been daylight Rush no doubt would have quickly thrown himself to one side.
Suddenly something came whirling through the air. The Iron Boy did not see it, and it is doubtful if more than one man about the furnace did. It was a dark object, and it smote Steve across the chest with terrific force.
The Iron Boy staggered backward, toppled over just as the molten flood from the furnace went hissing past. The boy did not stop there.His body began rolling down the incline leading to the jumping-off place, below which the tracks were located. His body shot over ahead of the metal, for that had to follow a circuitous course. There was little danger of its overtaking him, as a dam at the lower end was intended to check its flow until the train had backed in with the ladles to receive the ore. This train, as it chanced, was at the moment backing down to the furnace at high speed, for the train was late and the tapping of the furnace, the engineer knew, could not be delayed without perhaps doing great damage to the metal.
Bob Jarvis, from his perch high in the air, had caught sight of the scene that was being enacted below as a draught of air tore aside the curtain of smoke that during the evening had blotted out the lower end of the furnace. Forgetful of his duty up there Bob sprang to the ladder. He did not wait for the hot rungs this time; but, grasping the sides of the iron ladder, shoes on the outside pressed tight against the uprights, he dropped out of sight of the charging platform like a stone. The rapid descent was burning the skin from his palms and an odor of burning leather reached his nose faintly as the iron sides of the ladders burned through the shoes pressed against it.
Bob landed with a jolt. He dropped to thefurnace floor, but was up in a twinkling. Leaping the saffron river he bolted across the intervening space and sprang straight out into the air, right in the face of the approaching train of flat cars thundering in.
There was a ten-foot drop to the ground. Jarvis did not know whether he was going to land in a pit of hot ore, cinders, or on a fence of iron that would end his career right there.
By the light from the opened furnace, as he was falling, he saw the tracks below him and the form of Steve Rush lying stretched across them. Bob saw something else too—the long line of flat cars swooping down on Steve.
Jarvis landed on all fours. He did not waste time in glancing about to see where the train was. Instead, he grabbed Rush, pitching him headlong out of the way. Steve landed on his head, pivoted for a second, and then fell over on his back.
Jarvis straightened up and started to leap clear of the track when he was struck a terrific blow from behind. The force of the blow lifted the boy from the tracks. As everything about him began to grow black he felt himself being hurled through the air.
There was no time to shout, nor opportunity to help himself. Bob had been struck by the train, the end beam of the leading car havingcaught him squarely across the hips. Bob landed some ten feet beyond the spot where Steve was lying. The latter, however, had been barely stunned. About the time Bob went soaring over his head, Rush scrambled to his feet and hands then got up limping a little.
But Steve was dazed. The glare of the intense light from the open furnace blinded his eyes so that he could not see a thing distinctly. He heard the shrill shriek of the shifting engine, then four quick, warning blasts. The Iron Boy ducked instinctively at the same time leaping to one side.
By this time objects began to grow out of the glare with more or less distinctness. Steve rubbed his eyes and blinked.
"I wonder what happened? I know—I got an awful rap from something."
His arms ached and his chest was so sore that the touch of his clothes gave him pain. About that time Rush discovered that raising his arms was attended with more or less pain also.
"Hello! Something is going on over there by the furnace. Now what in the world has happened? If Kalinski were anywhere about I should think he had been trying some of his tricks on me again."
Kalinski was not there, but three men whohad climbed down from the brick and steel platform about the furnace came running around the lower end, heading for the spot where the Iron Boy was standing.
"Hi, whom are you looking for?" Steve called.
"Hello, who's that?" answered a voice.
"It's Rush. I'm all right. Something must have hit me and knocked me off the platform."
"I guess something did hit you," answered a voice that Steve recognized as belonging to the head melter, Pig-Iron Peel. "Where is the other boy?"
"What other boy?"
"Jarvis?"
"Why, he's up at the top of the furnace on the charging platform."
"Not much he ain't!" answered Peel. "He's down here, somewhere."
"Down here?" wondered Rush.
"Yes."
"How did he get down here?"
"He came over after you. Never saw such a quick move in my life. What's bothering me is how he ever got down the ladder soon enough to get you. He saved your life all right, boy."
"Hello, Bob!" shouted Steve, realizing all at once that something more had occurred than he knew about. "Bob!"
"Hello," answered a faint voice off in the darkness of the yard.
Rush darted forward, followed by the head melter and his two companions.
"Where are you, Bob?"
"I'm here—what's left of me, and that isn't much."
They found Bob on his knees, gingerly rubbing the injured portion of his anatomy.
"Are you hurt?" begged Steve solicitously.
"Hurt? Why, I'll never be able to walk again as long as I live! I'll have to sit around all the rest of my life."
Bob's companion was helping him to his feet, bringing groans of pain from the unfortunate Jarvis.
"Don't touch my hands; they're skinned. Oh, what a fool I am! Let me alone; don't you see I'm skinned alive?"
With Steve on one side of him, and Pig-Iron Peel on the other, Jarvis was led over to the stairs that extended up to the platform.
"Will you please tell me what happened to you?" demanded Steve.
"Ask the boss. I don't know. I think I must have been kicked by something. Are there any mules in the yards."
"No; no mules," replied Peel. "You were hit by a train."
"You don't mean it? I'll bet the train was wrecked! Nothing—no train could hit an object with the force that I was hit and not be bucked off the track. That's so; I remember, now, I was getting you off the track when I was struck."
"Yes; you would have been run over and killed on the spot if Jarvis hadn't got you when he did. How did you get down from the charging platform?" demanded the melter, turning to Bob.
"I shot the chutes and it was the hottest shoot I ever took. Look at my hands."
"So I fell on the track, did I?" questioned Rush.
"Yes."
"How did I happen to do that?"
"You fell over the edge right in front of the train."
"Yes, but something hit me and knocked me over. I remember getting a whack something like that described by Bob, only I wasn't struck in the same place."
"I hit you," spoke up the head melter.
"You did?"
"Yes. There wouldn't have been so much as a grease spot left of you, by this time, if I hadn't."
"What did you hit me with?"
"I threw the dolly at you, and it did the business. It knocked you plumb over on your back. The cast was right on top of you when I let go the dolly. You know the rest."
"Then you saved my life, too, Mr. Peel?"
"Well, something of that sort," grinned the head-melter.
"We're both entitled to hero medals, you see," added Bob.
"Thank you; I owe you both one for that. Well, Mr. Peel I am ready to go to work. How about you, Bob?"
Jarvis glanced up to where the ladder disappeared in the veil of smoke high above them.
"If I had an elevator I'd be all right, but I'll try it."
"You need not go up if you don't feel like it," said the melter. "I will send one of the furnace men up to finish your trick, if you wish."
"No, I'll go myself. There won't be any trouble about getting down. I can fall down, but the difficulty will be in climbing that ladder with the skin all off my hands. Say, those rungs are hot. Why don't you cool them off?"
"We'll play the hose on you while you are going up if you want."
"You'd better not, if you know what is good for you. If you even breathe on me I'll fall off. Well, here goes!"
Rush, followed his companion to the foot of the ladder.
"Are you sure you are all right, Bob?" he asked anxiously.
"No; I am not all right, but I'm right enough to beat this game. I can't do any more than break my neck, and I guess that isn't breakable. We have had our initiation ceremonies; now maybe we'll go along for a time without anything happening. Here goes!"
Bob, with evident effort, began climbing. Once he seemed to lose his grip and Steve, believing he was going to fall, started to run up the ladder.
"Quit that!" howled Jarvis, feeling the vibration on the ladder. "What are you trying to do—throw me off?"
"I thought perhaps you needed some help."
"I'll tell you when I do. What I want most just now is to be let alone."
Rush stepped back to the platform, but he remained standing there until finally Jarvis disappeared in the cloud of smoke and gas up near the top of the blast furnace. Then he turned back to the furnace work.
"What next, Mr. Peel?" he asked.
"Well, if you think you can get out of the way quick enough, you can begin to patch up the gutters again."
The hot metal train had long since pulled away over the bridge, on its way to the mills, where the ingots would either be rolled in their crude state or placed in the open-hearth furnaces to be transformed into ingots of steel.
"I guess I can keep out of the way, now that I know what to keep out of the way of."
"I'll put you on the dolly to-morrow, and make a monkey-man of you. If you don't get incinerated we'll make a real man of you."
"Thank you."
Peel did not know whether the remark was intended to be sarcastic or not, and Steve's impassive face gave him no clue to the truth.
For the rest of the night each of the Iron Boys labored faithfully, and that morning, the moment they struck their beds, they instantly fell into the deathlike sleep of the laborer in the steel mills.
THROUGH THE MELTING POT
"I'VE got a new job for you," said the head melter to Steve, when the Iron Boys reported for duty on the following evening.
"Am I to be the monkey?"
"No, not to-day. I'll let you be the ladle man."
"What does he do?"
"Not much. He stands with a ladle in his hands, scooping from the molten metal, as it bursts out through the clay dam, all the cinders and slag he can pick up. Every little bit helps. You've got to watch lively, or you will be burned to a crisp before you pick up the first ladle full," was the cheerful additional remark of the head melter.
"I was going to ask if you have a new job for me to-night," interrupted Bob, "but I don't think I care very much for your promotions. That's where I have the best of you, Steve. If anything happens in my department I can jump down, but you can't jump up to get out of the way of your troubles."
"At least, I am in little danger of breaking my neck in trying to jump up," laughed Rush.
Bob was soon at the top of the furnace. He was still sore from the bump he had gotten in collision with the train of flat cars. Jarvis walked with a limp. One leg seemed to be shorter than the other, since the accident, but of course this was not the case. He took up his work with more confidence than he had begun it on the previous night, relieving the monotony by alternately whistling and singing, though the latter was usually attended with a severe coughing spell as he swallowed a mouthful of gas and smoke.
Steve found his new occupation far from an improvement over what he had begun with. His first effort to scoop cinders and slag from the yellow stream resulted in his losing his eyebrows, much of the hair on his head and nearly all the clothing he had on.
Had it not been for the quick action of the man with the hose he would not have had a stitch of clothing left on him, and perhaps very little skin-covering either.
"Dip and jump!" shouted the melter. "What are you trying to do?"
"Principally jumping, only I didn't jump quite quickly enough," laughed Steve, the tears running from his smarting eyes. He bathed them liberally in cold water, after which they felt better.
The next dip was not much of an improvement over the first, except that there were fewer clothes to be burned and no eyebrows at all. Now, Rush was shouting for water, as had the others before him. Being a raw hand it was dashed over him by the pailful, in addition to the deluge he got from the hose in the hands of the hoseman.
The Iron Boy staggered away, gasping for breath. His head was a-whirl and he felt as though he were on fire.
"Water, water!" he gasped, settling down in a heap.
No one laughed. No one cared. They were used to such scenes of suffering, and the rough furnace men felt no compassion for the suffering boy. It was the water man's business to cool him off and no concern of theirs.
In a short time Rush recovered and went staggering to his work again. Once more he collapsed, and once more he was brought out of his partial faint by a pail of water and hose.
This kept up for the greater part of the night, but each succeeding collapse left him weaker and weaker. Still, Steve Rush clung doggedly to his task. Only his iron will kept him up. Every pore in his body was the outlet of a living stream of perspiration. Never in his life had he suffered the excruciating or long-drawn-outagony that he experienced as ladle man this night.
Pig-Iron Peel nodded approvingly. He was a rough man himself, but he appreciated pluck and he knew pluck when he saw it.
"You had better lie down between casts," he advised, grasping an arm of the Iron Boy, who was staggering about blindly after a successful dipping, for even in his suffering he was rapidly getting the knack of the work.
"I do—don't need to," gasped Steve.
"I don't care. I was simply telling you."
The next dip was worse than any that had preceded it. This time Steve did not need to be told. He fell down without any effort of his own. He simply collapsed, rolling over on his back on the hot brick flooring of the platform, where he lay gasping for breath.
A pail of water was dashed over him and the hoseman played the hose up and down his body. But Rush did not care. It is doubtful if he even felt the cooling effect of the water. The boy was too nearly spent for anything to matter. During this wait, however, he had more time to recover himself, and by the time the men were ready for the next cast he was on his feet. Steve's eyes were bloodshot, and seemed to stand out from their sockets like two red balls. He worked automatically for the rest of thenight, not answering questions addressed to him and probably not hearing any.
"They all have to go through the same experience," was the comforting assurance of the head-melter. "You will come out all right in a day or so, if you don't die in the meantime."
Steve went on with his work in silence. At the coming of the dawn Jarvis came down from the charging platform, the whites of his eyes looking twice their natural size in their frame of black soot, which was plastered over the boy's face layer upon layer. Bob found Steve leaning wearily against a pillar. The latter's face was drawn and haggard. Rush looked years older. Jarvis gazed at him in astonishment.
"In the name of goodness what's the matter with you? Are you going to die—are you sick, or——"
"Nothing is the matter with me," answered Steve, the harsh lines that had grown on his face during the night smoothing out into a wan, but sunny smile.
"Well, if there isn't there ought to be, for you are about the worst-looking object I ever saw."
"You—you wouldn't take a prize yourself, at—at——"
"At a poultry show, no," finished Jarvis. "Come along; are you going home, or would you rather hang around here?"
"Home?" answered Steve.
"I think you will have to be carried, if you get there to-day. Shall I go get a rig for you? You're clean knocked out."
"I tell you I am all right," retorted Rush, with some show of irritation. "Don't you trouble yourself about me."
Bob gazed at his companion in surprise. Steve had never spoken to him in that tone before, so Jarvis kept still for a time as they went on across the yards, over the hot metal bridge and to the lower exit from the yards. As they were passing out they met Ignatz Brodsky coming in. The Pole stopped short, peering into the face of Steve Rush.
"What the matter with you?"
"Nothing is the matter with me, Ignatz," answered Steve, by this time in better control of himself. "I am a little tired—that's all."
"You stay by the house to-night. You no go to the furnace; you go by the graveyard by and by."
"We expect to, you old croaker," scoffed Jarvis. "Go on, or else talk about something pleasant. Where are you working now?"
"I work by the hot bed," answered Ignatz.
Bob laughed heartily.
"I guess we all do, though they are not exactly beds. Well, so long; we must be going."
Brodsky bade them good-bye, Steve waving his hand; then the Pole stood looking after them, his eyes fixed longingly on Rush, whose gait was none too steady. Brodsky shook his head and went on to work.
"What's a hot bed, Steve?" questioned Bob.
"I don't know. I know a place that is hot enough to be called one."
"And I know two places, the one you work in and the one I work on top of. Do you know, the waste gas that comes out of the top of that stove is strong enough to light a whole town?"
"Goes up into the air, does it?"
"All that doesn't swoop down and suffocate me. I've been asphyxiated every ten minutes since I have been up there."
"I wonder why they don't use the gas for something else?" mused Rush. He lapsed into silence, pondering over this subject all the rest of the way home. This was well, for it made him forget his weariness in a measure. Reaching the widow Brodsky's, Steve was for going to bed without any breakfast, but Bob was so insistent that the boy did sit down to his meal after having taken his bath. Rush ate a fairly nourishing breakfast and after that felt better. This, followed by a refreshing sleep put him in very good condition.
Steve left the house a couple of hours beforeit was time to go to work. He was still unsteady on his feet, but the color was returning to his face and his wonderful vitality was asserting itself. He would be himself again, in a few hours, if he were out in the open away from the killing heat of the blast furnaces.
The boy wanted to see the furnaces by daylight so, that he might get a better idea of them than was possible in the night. He stopped to witness the work of the day shift as they made a cast. This was very interesting, though a wave of pity welled up in the heart of the Iron Boy for the suffering of the furnace men in the terrific heat to which they were subjected while tapping the furnace.
The cast over, he walked to where the huge black stoves towered above him, and through which the gas flamed and circulated to heat the air that was driven in over the charge in the furnace itself.
The engineer nodded to him.
"Where does the waste gas go to?" asked the Iron Boy.
"Out into the air. Why?"
"I should think they would use it for something else."
"What else?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I. We don't use gas for anythingelse, except running the gas engines over on the other side of the yard. I guess you don't know much about this business, or you wouldn't be asking such questions."
"One never learns much unless he does ask questions," answered the lad. "I have learned more from asking questions that I ever have any other way."
"That's right, so long as you can find anybody who's willing to answer fool questions."
Steve walked away without replying. His mind was at work, what Jarvis called working over time. The lad was thinking deeply over what he had discovered, and, though he did not realize it at the time, he had come upon an idea that was to work a great change in one department of the great steel industry.
A HANG-OVER AND A FLAREBACK
"TAKE the monkey trick," ordered the head melter when Steve reported for duty at the usual hour.
This meant standing right in front of the furnace much of the time. It was also the duty of the monkey-man to prod the clay dam with the dolly when all was ready for a cast, as well as occasionally to prod through the shell of the furnace above the metal and just below the bustle pipes, in order to liberate the gases that had formed there.
If anything, it was a worse position than he had yet had. But Steve did not flinch. He was there to learn all there was to be learned, and he proposed to do so, whatever the cost to himself.
"I guess I can stand it if others do," he thought when the new detail was called off. These men were just getting ready to go to work, Steve had stripped off a good portion of his clothes and donned a light rubber coat when Jarvis, who had not yet gone to the charging platform, touched him on the arm.
"What is it?"
"S-h-h! Look out for yourself!" whispered Jarvis.
"I'm going to."
"When you get a chance, without attracting attention, just look behind you and see who's here."
Rush nodded understandingly and went on with his preparations for the night's work, while Bob started for the "roof," as he called it. When an opportunity presented itself so that he could do so naturally, Steve turned.
He gave a slight start. He found himself looking into the face of his former pit boss, Watski Kalinski. The latter did not appear to have observed Steve; at least, he kept his eyes averted until the lad decided that the fellow was ashamed to look at him.
"I wonder what he is doing here?" muttered Rush.
When he got an opportunity Steve asked the head melter about it, and was informed that Kalinski was taking the place of a man who had been struck by the metal train on his way to work that afternoon. Kalinski was an old furnace man.
Steve nodded his understanding, but still he resolved to keep an eye on Kalinski. He did not trust the man, knowing well his revengeful nature.
"Next thing I know they will have Foley over here, and then it will be time to carry a club in my boot, for there'll be something doing at blast number four."
Nothing did occur, however. The gang made the first cast with success. Steve still suffered from the heat, but not to the same extent. He was learning how to favor himself and to save himself, a most necessary part of the furnace man's work. Kalinski was doing general work about the furnace, but the Iron Boy did not relax his vigilance. As the evening wore on he was convinced, from certain sinister glances in his direction, that the former pit boss was contemplating mischief. It might not come that night, but it was sure to come sooner or later, and the boy did not propose to be caught napping if he could help himself. He had no idea, however, that he would be taken so by surprise as he really was.
Midnight arrived. Steve stood bravely at his place in front of the furnace. It was heated through and through, and the metal was running well. Not a failure or a mishap had occurred to mar the serenity of the head melter's temper, and his face wore a smile when it was safe to smile without running the risk of cracking the smile from the heat of the furnace. During a lull in the work Steve was asking questionsabout the operation of the blast furnace. He learned from the head melter that two tons of ore, as it came from the mines, smelted down to one ton of pig; that unless the ingredients were exactly right and the boiling done just right, thousands of tons might be spoiled in casting.
"You have to go by instinct largely," said Pig-Iron Peel. "You can't lay down any hard and fast rule. The only way is to taste of the metal and then you know when it's done to a turn."
"Taste of it?" exclaimed Steve. "Excuse me. I have come as near to it as I want to. I'm not a metal-taster."
Peel laughed.
"I don't mean to drink the stuff down, but tasting with your ears, eyes and nose; hearing, seeing and smelling—understand?"
"Yes; I catch your meaning."
"When you get to that point you may consider yourself a furnace man. But it is dangerous business. A man never knows when he's going to get his, and be dragged out in the wagon. We don't think of it, though. A fellow gets used to all sorts of dangers, and goodness knows these mills are full of them. When a fellow gets hurt, however, it's most likely his own fault. The company does all it can to protect its men."
"So I have observed. Some of its men are more dangerous than the perils of the mills themselves," answered Steve with a laugh.
"I reckon you are right at that. You're learning the whole business, ain't you?"
"I am trying to."
"Then you've bit off a full mouthful. Going to the open hearths from here?"
"I do not know; I am going wherever I am put."
"That's the usual way they promote from here, and so on into the mills themselves. Where'd you begin?"
Rush told him, relating his experiences in the pit, but mentioning no names. Pig-Iron Peel's face grew black with righteous indignation as he listened to the recital.
"Who was the fiend?" he demanded.
"I am not going to tell you."
"He ought to be whaled with a red hot angle bar, until there wasn't a piece of skin left on him as big as a bolt-head. I'd like to get the duffer in my hands just once—only once—that would be enough for a starter from me. The pup!"
Peel had raised his voice to a high pitch. Steve glanced over toward Watski Kalinski. The latter was regarding Peel and Rush angrily. It was quite evident that either he hadcaught the drift of the conversation by hearing some of the words, or else he suspected the truth from their actions.
"I wish you'd tell me who it was, Rush."
"No, I could not think of doing that. He has been pretty well punished already, and he is likely to get worse if he tries any more of his tricks. Jarvis gave him an awful whaling, you know."
Rush raised his voice so that Kalinski could not help hearing every word this time.
"He did, eh?"
"Yes."
"Is Jarvis much of a scrapper?"
"He is a whirlwind."
"Good for him! I'll get him off the charging platform and give him something better down here," said the head melter, as he nodded approvingly over what Steve had told him.
"That's the kind of a boy for me. No, I don't mean because he fights. I got no use for a brawler, but because he can be a man when he gets up against the real thing. Tell me about that mix-up."
This Steve did, including the kicking of Brodsky, which really led to the interference of Jarvis. Peel stamped about on the fire brick of the platform, his anger growing momentarily.
"The whelp! The miserable cur! He'd betternot show his face around these furnaces. I'll break every bone in his miserable no-account body. Tell me who he is! Tell me who he is!"
"Not now. Perhaps some other time. The man might not like to hear it, you know."
Peel regarded his young charge suspiciously.
"Isn't it about time we made a cast? The ore smells to me as if it were about ready."
Pig-Iron sniffed the air with a snort.
"Get ready for a cast!" he bellowed. "Boy, you'll do. You've got the nose that smells, you have. Heave up that dolly bar. How's them gutters? You, Kalinski, there, see that slag trough is open. Bud, get your cinder-ladle ready. Come, now, the whole bunch of you is half-asleep. Anybody'd think you'd been out to a party all day long. Come, Rush!"
"I am here, sir."
"Git that dolly against the furnace dam, and get ready to jump when things are hot enough."
"I will jump, never you fear," answered Steve laughing.
The Iron Boy turned his back to the men and placed the dolly bar against the clay dam after facing the glaring heat at close range long enough to place the end of the bar on exactly the right spot.
"All ready, sir."
"Drive it! Steady there," warned the voiceof the head melter. "Keep watch, Rush, and sing out when you get enough."
After a moment the compressed air drill was put on, and after wearing the dam thin, the dolly was once more resorted to as that could be withdrawn much more quickly than could the compressed air drill. Haste was necessary, or the lives of the men would be in great peril in case the molten metal squirted from the dam around the sides of the dolly. The furnace men, especially those on the tapping job, would be likely to get the full charge in their faces.
"Clank, clank, clank!" sounded the steel mall as it beat against the end of the bar held by Steve.
"Tap lighter," ordered the boy.
The sound of the blows grew fainter.
"That will do. We can poke out the opening after we step to one side. We shall then——"
"Bang!"
The mall struck the end of the dolly a terrific blow. The bar was driven through the thin shell of dolmite right into the hot metal of the furnace.
Like a projectile the dolly was wrenched from the hands of the Iron Boy. It was shot through the air, right past him at tremendous speed.
Steve was about to shout, "Stop it!" but he was too late. The bar of iron was soaring outover the mill yard. The head melter's voice was raised above the din.
"Who did that? Who hit that bar?"
But Steve did not hear. For a brief second after the escape of the dolly he stood still on the bushing. With an angry hiss a stream of white hot metal shot past his head as though projected through the nozzle of a hose. It was a narrow escape, for, if the metal had struck him in the face, it would have gone clear through him.
A dull report sounded in the furnace itself.
"Look out for the flareback!" roared Pig-Iron Peel. "Run for it!"
Now a new sound smote their ears. It was a rumbling noise that seemed to start away down in the foundations of the blast furnace, working upward at a rapid rate.
Steve, who had quickly leaped from his dangerous position, glanced at the head melter inquiringly, as if to ask what this new thing might be.
"It's a hang-over!" shouted the melter. "Now we are in for it!"
IN A FIERY RAIN
STEVE RUSH did not know what a hang-over might be. He had just had a practical demonstration of what a flareback was. This, however, he did not know was caused by an explosion of the molten metal, either from a stream of water touching it or a too sudden inrush of cool air. At any rate the metal in the furnace, just as the dolly was driven in, had suffered a partial explosion. The air was full of molten metal shooting in all directions. Some of the men back of where the monkey-man had been standing had been quite seriously burned in the explosion.
Steve, seeing three of them flattened on the platform, dashed in at the risk of his own life, dragging the men to positions of safety.
"Get under cover!" bellowed Pig-Iron. "Don't you know there's a hang-over?"
"What's a hang-over—what am I to look out for?" shouted Steve.
"That's an explosion at the top caused by a stoppage of the vents in the charge," explained Peel, as the two hurriedly crawled in under one of the huge heating stoves. "It'll be rainingcoke here, in a minute, till you can't see ten feet ahead of you."
"An—an explosion at the top of the furnace, do you say?" gasped Rush.
"Yes. The whole business is blowing out of the top. Don't you hear it coming?"
The fiery rain of coke and ore had begun. It sounded like the roar of an approaching storm as it beat on the metal sides of the big stoves.
"But Jarvis is up there!" cried the Iron Boy, beginning to crawl from under the protecting stove.
"No, he ain't. Come back! You'll be killed. Why, you wouldn't stand any more show in that coke shower than you would to stand up under hot fire in battle, and perhaps not so much. Fellers do git through a battle without being hit. Nobody ever was in a coke shower who didn't git more or less hit, principally more."
"I tell you, Bob is up there. I must go——"
"No, he ain't."
"He isn't? Then where is he?"
"Oh, he got blowed off when the explosion—when the hang-over——"
"Blown off?"
"Sure. He couldn't hang on in a hang-over, could he?"
Rush groaned. He ventured to peer from under the stove, up into the air. The top ofthe furnace was a volcano in full eruption. Fire, smoke and coke were belching high up into the air, there spreading out like a great umbrella and raining down over a wide area.
Pig-Iron reached out a hand, jerking Steve roughly back.
"Don't be a fool!" he growled.
"Do—do you think Jarvis is killed?"
"Most likely. Ought to be, if he isn't after getting that dose."
All at once Rush broke away from the head melter, darted to the iron ladder, and, regardless of the rain of coke, began running up the ladder. The boy got blow upon blow over head and shoulders, as the stuff beat down upon him, but he kept his head down and pluckily kept on up the ladder.
"Come back!" roared Pig-Iron, darting from cover at the risk of his life. But Steve was too far up the ladder to be seen from below. The head melter again bellowed his command to Rush to return.
In the meantime the boy had reached the top. Jarvis was not there. Steve cried out to him, but there was no response. With a catch in his breath, Rush turned and slid down the ladder to the base of the furnace. His head was cut and bleeding from the flying coke, and his shoulders were wounded in many different places.
Steve staggered rather than walked over to the stove where he dropped down.
"Well, he ain't there, is he?" demanded Pig-Iron.
"No; he isn't there. Where—where do you think he is?"
"Most likely out in the yard somewhere. As soon as this black shower is over we'll go look for him. He's done for. Too bad, but them things will happen."
"I don't believe it!" answered the Iron Boy explosively. "It will take more than a hang-over to kill Bob Jarvis. You'll find he is all right. But, if that is so, I don't understand why he did not answer me when I called."
"I told you so. No use to cry over spilled coke. We'll pick him up pretty quick."
"There, the shower is letting up. Shall we go, now?" demanded Steve impatiently.
The melter stretched forth a hand, drawing it back quickly.
"Not yet! I don't propose to get my head cracked just for the sake of being in a hurry."
"Well, I am going, whether you are or not."
Rush crawled from under the stove and straightened up. The metal was still running from the furnace, most of it having spilled off into the yard, for instantly the hang-over occurred the train crew had fled. They knew fullwell what was coming, and every man of them instantly took to cover. The metal ran over the first ladle. Instantly the car under the ladle caught fire. In a few minutes the whole train was on fire. The engineer, who had deserted his post with the rest of them, rushed back at the risk of his life, uncoupled his engine and started it away, thus saving the engine from being seriously damaged.
Rush raised his voice in a long shout for his companion.
"Bo-o-b! O-h-h-h, Bob!"
"Hi, hi, catch me down there!" howled a voice from the air. It sounded right over the head of Steve Rush.
Pig-Iron Peel heard it, too, and darted out. The two men glanced up into the air. They saw a human form shooting down one of the wire braces that extended up to the top of the stove to steady the metal chimney around which there was a network of the wires.
"It's Bob!" howled Rush beside himself with joy. "Help me catch him."
ItwasBob, and he was descending at a rate of speed altogether too fast for either comfort or safety.
Steve leaped over to where the lower end of the guy-wire was anchored and braced himself to meet the shock. Peel sprang behind him.