LAYING HANDS ON THE BOSS
It was Foley's place to order the pit boss to let the boys alone and
attend to his own business. Instead, Foley turned and walked away. He
did not go far, however. He made his way to one of the open-hearth
furnaces, where, unobserved, he peered around the corner of the red-hot
pile of brick.
Rush saw that an encounter was unavoidable. He was sorry, but he decided
quickly to avoid coming to blows if possible.
Kalinski had stooped over to pick up a shovel. In his rage he was going
to attack the boys with it. Steve was out of the pit in a flash.
"Keep out of this, Bob, unless the others mix in. I'll take care of that
fellow."
When Watski straightened up he found the Iron Boy standing over him with
a pleasant smile on his face.
"I wouldn't do that, were I in your place, Kalinski. I tell you it was
an accident, and I am sorry I threw the cinders over you. I give you my
word that it was an accident."
Watski dropped his shovel, and uttering a yell of rage, struck at Steve.
The blow, had it reached its mark, would have knocked Rush backward
into the hot cinder pit. He dodged the blow, however; then suddenly
Watski Kalinski found his wrists in a grip that made him writhe. The
Iron Boy's thumbs were pressing on sensitive nerves.
"Ouch! Ouch!" howled the Pole.
Foley, in his wonder, forgot to hide himself. He stepped from the
protection of the furnace.
"Leggo my wrists! Leggo, I tell you!"
"Will you behave yourself if I----"
"I'll knock your head--ouch!"
The tears were actually running from the eyes of the pit boss. He was
suffering great pain. But he got no sympathy from the mill hands who had
gathered about. They were laughing and jeering at him, not especially
because they sided with Rush, whom they did not know, but because
Kalinski was not popular among them.
At this juncture Bill Foley came running forward. He saw that his pit
boss was getting the worst of it, and that Rush would soon gain the
sympathy of the crowd. He did not wish this to happen. Had it been the
other way Foley would have been perfectly satisfied.
The furnace foreman dashed around the pit, headed for the humiliated
boss. Jarvis saw him coming. Bob stepped in front of Foley.
"What are you going to do?" demanded the lad.
"Get out of my way before I hurt you!"
"And you keep out of this, or I'm likely to forget myself and hurt you.
You know it wouldn't look well to have the foreman licked by one of his
men," grinned Jarvis.
Foley gazed at the Iron Boy in astonishment. All at once he raised his
foot, delivering a vicious kick. The foreman never quite understood how
it happened, but the next second he found himself falling backwards into
the pit, while the mill hands set up a roar.
Jarvis had been on his guard. When the kick was delivered, he caught the
ankle of the foreman, giving it a quick jerk that threw the fellow off
his balance. There could be but one result. Bill toppled over backwards,
landing on his head in the pit.
"Get him out of there! He'll burn to death, Bob," warned Rush.
Bob helped the foreman out, but with reluctance.
"It would serve you right if you did burn. But don't you try any of your
funny business on me again. You won't get off so easily if you try it on
another time."
"Kalinski, do you think you can let us alone if I release you now?"
questioned Steve.
The Pole did not answer, but if there ever was murder in a man's eyes it
was in Kalinski's. Steve put on a little harder pressure.
"Yes, yes; leggo! I don't want anything to do with you. I----"
Rush released the man instantly. At first the Pole acted as though he
was about to spring upon his remarkable young antagonist. He seemed to
think better of it, however, after a glance into the unsympathetic faces
about him, then into the smiling face of Steve Rush.
"Will you go to work, or must I throw you out of the mill!" snarled
Kalinski.
"We shall be glad to go to work if you will let us alone. I wonder what
the superintendent would say if he happened along about this time?"
"I shall fine both of you two days' pay," announced Foley, making a
memorandum in a soot-soiled memorandum book.
"Very well, sir. That is your privilege. It is ours to protest, if we
think best, which is not saying that we shall. We have been used most
disgracefully, and----"
"You didn't think of that when you got me into trouble, did you?"
sneered the foreman.
"So that is where the shoe pinches, is it? I begin to understand. You
propose to get even with us? Well, all I have to say is that I should
advise you not to try it. We have come here to work, and at our own
request. If you become unbearable I warn you we are perfectly able to
take care of ourselves, and we shall do so. We don't propose to submit
to any insults from you or any one else, Bill Foley."
"Just put that in your pipe and smoke it!" chuckled Bob.
Steve was at work again. Jarvis slowly followed his companion to the
pit, where both lads stood on the plank and shoveled out cinders. They
gave no further heed to the foreman or the pit boss. The latter two had
drawn back some little distance, where Kalinski was gesticulating and
talking to Foley with considerable emphasis.
In a little while the shovelers had gotten down to where the pit was
aglow with coals. The plank beneath their feet began to blaze up, the
smoke getting into their mouths and noses, setting the lads to sneezing.
"I am going to get out of here," announced Bob. "This is worse than the
stoke-hole."
"Oh, pshaw, it isn't nearly so hot, though it is about as dirty. I know,
though, that the men do not work in a pit as hot as this one is. There
must be some other way out of the woods. Yes; we will climb up now. We
shall be burned to cinders soon if we don't."
"Is that a joke?" demanded Jarvis.
"Is what a joke?"
"Burned to _cinders_."
"Certainly not," answered Steve, placing the plank against the side of
the pit. "Go on, Bob."
The latter lost no time in crawling from the hot hole. They were met by
Kalinski at the top.
"Well, what is it now?" he growled.
"Isn't there some way of cooling that pit off a little? We can't work
down there, or dig any deeper, until it gets cooler. Why, it will burn
the clothes from our backs."
"Hope it does! Hope it burns you up," snarled the pit boss.
"I hope you haven't got your wishing cap on," answered Jarvis, with a
grin that was intended to be humorous. "If you have, I'm through."
"Can you not put some water on the cinders? I see a hose right here,"
added Steve.
The boss saw that the boys were determined. He knew that there would be
no more work done in the pit that morning, unless the pit was made
livable for the men. He could not afford to have the work delayed, for
that would reflect on him.
Watski took up the hose sullenly, turned a tiny stream, and with a
finger over the nozzle gently sprayed the bed of hot coals. A cloud of
steam shot up into the air, whereat he shut off the water instantly.
Steve was watching the process interestedly.
"I wonder why he doesn't turn the water in full force?" mused the boy.
He would not ask questions of the surly Pole, preferring to pick up what
he could by observation. Bob had sat down on the floor, where he
examined his burned clothes ruefully, at the same time gently rubbing
the blistered spots on his skin.
"I wish I dared throw that animal into the pit head first," muttered
Jarvis, eyeing the pit boss resentfully. "I wonder why they have such a
beast at the head of anything."
The rumble of the charging machine, as it thundered along the tracks on
the other side of the open-hearth furnaces with its load of pig iron and
scrap for the furnaces, attracted Bob's attention for the moment. He was
called to attention by the voice of the boss.
"Rush, get in there. It's cool enough now. Look here, you," he added,
addressing Jarvis, surveying the lad from head to feet as if trying to
decide upon the most vulnerable part of the young man's anatomy for an
attack.
"I'm looking. What's the answer?" retorted Jarvis, gazing into the eyes
of Kalinski.
"There ain't room for two such lummoxes as you in that pit now. You take
the next one on number eight furnace."
"Is it as hot as this?"
"Hotter."
"Then I guess I will wait until it cools off," answered Bob, sitting
down again.
Watski's face showed a dull red under the cinder soot.
"You get up and go to work, unless you want to lose your whole week's
wages. What do you think this is--a baby hospital?"
"I didn't know but it might be, seeing you live here," retorted Jarvis,
taking his time at getting up, but keeping a weather eye on Kalinski,
who had a habit of suddenly forgetting himself, as Jarvis already had
discovered.
"Shall I cool the pit off?"
"How?"
"With the hose."
The pit boss grinned.
"Think you can do it?"
"Of course I can do it. It doesn't take any great amount of skill or
intelligence to handle an inch hose, does it?"
"Use it if you want to, but remember I warned you."
"Against what?" demanded Bob, eyeing the boss half suspiciously.
"Against using the water."
"Pshaw!"
Jarvis went over to the tap, turning on a full stream of water. When he
straightened up he saw that Kalinski was walking rapidly away, so
rapidly, in fact, as to be almost on a run. Bob gazed after him
inquiringly.
"I wonder what ails that Indian?" muttered the lad. "He seems to be in a
great hurry about something."
Bob's attention was attracted to the water, which was now spurting from
the nozzle of the hose, the stream shooting right over where Steve was
at work, sending a shower of fine spray down on him.
"Hey, what are you doing up there?" he shouted.
"Watering the plants," scoffed Jarvis.
"You just turn that hose the other way unless you are looking for
trouble. Why don't you get to work?"
"Going to. I am at work already."
"Where is Kalinski?"
"He was sprinting down the shop the last I saw of him. He seemed to be
in a mighty big hurry about something."
Bob dragged the hose over to the pit behind open-hearth number eight.
Then he began playing the stream on the cinders full force. He did not
know that this was a very dangerous proceeding. No one had told him, and
the pit boss had merely intimated it when he said, "Remember, I warned
you."
"This is fine," grinned the boy. "I could do this all day and not get a
stitch in my back. Guess I will wet my legs."
He turned the hose on his blistered legs, the water feeling cool and
refreshing, for the lad's burns were becoming more and more painful as
the dust from the mill settled into them.
Jarvis shifted the nozzle to the other side and bathed the other leg, at
the same time keeping a watch for the boss. The latter was nowhere in
sight. He had gotten well out of harm's way, evidently knowing what was
about to happen.
Having bathed himself to his satisfaction Jarvis began playing the hose
on the cinder pile. The first contact of the water threw up a great
cloud of steam, followed by a sharp, hissing sound. Steve knew by the
sound that the other pit was being wet down, but it did not occur to
him, either, that there was any danger in the operation. In fact, he was
too busy shoveling the cinders from his own pit to give much attention
to what was going on in the other.
Bob was humming softly to himself as he played with the stream, first
sending it straight up into the air so that the spray covered a wide
area by the time it reached the floor of the mill. No one chanced to get
wet, however, save the two boys, Bob being the more so because he was
right under the shower. Next he turned the stream straight into the pit,
driving it down in one place, trying to bore a hole in the cinders and
slag.
"Say, Steve!"
"What?"
"What do you think about----"
Puff!
A slender column of black smoke shot up from the centre of the pit that
Jarvis was watering down. The lad stared at it in surprise.
"Look at the geyser!" he shouted.
Boom!
The ground under Bob Jarvis's feet rocked liked a cradle. A great, black
column rose from under his very feet, lifting him from the floor and
hurling the boy straight up into the air.