ON THE BRINK OF A VOLCANO
Reverberating crashes rent the air. Workmen in that part of the mill
were hurled violently to the ground. Yells and cries were heard on all
sides. The interior of the mill was full of flying debris.
Bob Jarvis had put too much water on the pit. The sudden contraction,
down deep among the hot slag and cinders, had caused a tremendous
explosion, wreaking disaster for many feet on either side of the pit.
Kalinski, in all probability, knew what would happen when he gave Jarvis
permission to soak down the cinders, and no doubt that was why the boss
made such haste to get away from the spot. If he were not there, he
could not be held responsible for what had occurred.
Fire spurted from the miniature volcano. Crash after crash followed, as
parts of furnaces close by toppled over, though fortunately the inside
walls of the furnaces did not fall and liberate their tons of molten
metal. Many lives would have been lost had that occurred. However, the
disaster was serious enough as it was, and several men had been
injured.
The red light was displayed at the top of the open-hearth building, but
this time it was another than Steve Rush who was hurrying to the scene
to gather the facts and give orders for the care of the injured.
Steve was near the bottom of number seven pit with cinders and slag
raining down on him in a perfect deluge. The lad instinctively pulled
his cap visor down over his eyes to keep the stuff from getting into his
eyes or burning his face. He had no idea what had happened, beyond the
fact that there had been some sort of explosion.
With quick presence of mind he grabbed up the plank, standing it against
the side of the pit and began to climb. Quick as he was, he was not
quick enough to get clear of the shower. It enveloped him; it choked and
half smothered him as he fought manfully to gain the top of the pit.
"It's gripping me," thought the lad. "I'll have a time getting out of
this now."
The stuff was up to his knees, Rush meantime kicking out vigorously,
pulling himself up inch by inch by sheer strength of arms and hands. Had
he not been such a muscular lad he would have been at the bottom of the
pit at that moment, probably dead.
The cinders and slag gained the boy's waist. He was nearing the top,
but now he could make little or no impression. He shouted for help, but
in the confusion none heard his call.
Steve kept struggling. He would never give up as long as there was a
single breath left in him. Finally, however, he found that he was making
absolutely no progress. The grip of the cinder and slag was getting
tighter and tighter as the stuff was packed about him.
Suddenly through the pall of smoke and dirt a human face appeared,
peering over into the pit. There was a bandage about the head of the man
who was looking down into number seven.
"Is that you, Rush?" called a familiar voice.
"Ye-yes," answered the lad, scarcely above a whisper, for he was fast
giving out. "Who--who are you? Help--help me out. I'm fa-fast and I--I'm
burning u----"
"This is Ignatz Brodsky. Sure, I help you. Reach up your hands. You must
make hurry. We both get buried alive in the hot stuff."
Steve stretched up his arms to the boy Ignatz, who had that morning come
out of the hospital and gone to work in the mill where he was employed
on a furnace a short distance down the line from where the Iron Boys
worked.
Ignatz knew whose pit had blown up. He knew that Steve was in an
adjoining one, because from where he was shoveling he had seen Rush go
down into the cinder hole a little while before the explosion occurred.
As for Bob Jarvis, he had not been seen since the black column had
lifted him from the floor.
Young Brodsky grasped the outstretched hands and began tugging with all
his might. All his efforts were unavailing. Steve was being buried
deeper and deeper every second.
"Hang on--I get somebody!" exclaimed Ignatz, darting away through the
black cloud.
Kalinski, now running here and there, apparently very much upset over
the disaster, was the first man the Pole met.
"Come quick!" he demanded, breathing hard.
"What do you want?" snarled Watski.
"The pit! There's a man in there and he can't get out!"
"Who is it?"
"Rush. He die pretty soon if we no get him out."
"Go on! Get him out yourself. I've got plenty on my hands. I'll help you
when I can get to it. There are others here who need me. Go along, now,
and get the crazy fool out," added the pit boss, turning away.
Ignatz did not seem surprised. He appeared more disappointed than
otherwise. That one of his countrymen should be so heartless made no
great impression on the boy. What he was concerned in now was finding
some one who would help him get his young friend out of the pit.
Brodsky ran here and there, with the result that he at last found two
mill hands who hurried to the pit with him. It was no easy task, even
for them, to get Steve out. The Iron Boy was still conscious, but he was
quite seriously burned about the body. Fortunately he had saved his head
and face from being very badly scarred.
After nearly pulling the boy's arms from his shoulders, working him from
side to side as they would a post that they were trying to pull out of
the ground, the men dragged him to safety.
"We take him to hospital," nodded Brodsky.
"Is the ambulance here?"
Ignatz nodded, whereupon the men carried Steve out and placed him in an
ambulance. A second ambulance had just arrived, so the surgeon of that
made a quick emergency dressing of the lad's burns, directing him to
remain in the ambulance. Rush felt no inclination to do otherwise at
that moment.
"Ignatz," he called.
"What is it?"
"I want you to find Bob."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"Mebby Bob is killed."
"Wait! Tell me what happened."
"The pit he blow up."
"What pit?"
"Number eight."
"Oh, that was the one Bob was sprinkling?"
"Yes. Put too much water on. Bang!" exclaimed Ignatz, striking a
dramatic attitude.
"Then he is surely killed or badly injured. Run, Ignatz! Find him. Don't
you come back here until you have."
"Ignatz find him," answered the Pole, darting back into the building,
from which a dense cloud of smoke was rolling through the crevices in
the roof and from the doors and windows.
No sooner had Brodsky left him than Steve pulled himself up and peered
out. There was no one in sight, so he slipped from the ambulance. He was
barely able to stand alone, and for a moment clung to a rear wheel of
the wagon for support.
The boy's burns hurt him so that he winced. Every movement made him want
to groan, but he shut his lips tightly together and by sheer force of
will pulled himself up.
"I'm going in to look for Bob," he muttered, starting unsteadily for the
door of the mill.
The smoke was still so thick that Rush could not make out much of
anything. He staggered along until he reached the spot where the
explosion had occurred. There he found the accident man gathering his
facts.
"Hello, Rush! You're hurt, aren't you?"
"Not much."
"Then you can tell me all about this. You were in it, weren't you?"
"I guess I was. But I can't tell you anything now. I'll tell you all I
know later on. Have you seen Jarvis?"
"No; where is he?"
"That is what I want to find out. He was working on the pit that blew
up."
"I guess he is settled then."
"I am afraid so."
"Well, we will hope not. I would help you look for him, but you know
I've got my hands full," explained the man from the office.
"Yes; I understand. Hunt me up after you get through, and I will give
you all the information I have, which isn't very much."
Rush started away. He came face to face with the surgeon who had dressed
his wounds.
"What are you doing here, Rush?" demanded the surgeon. "You get back to
the ambulance."
"I'm looking for Jarvis. You--you haven't found him, have you?"
"No. Is he hurt?"
"I think so."
"That's too bad," muttered the ambulance surgeon, returning to his work
of dressing the wounds of those who had been burned.
Rush went on, asking every one he met if they had seen Jarvis. No one
had. Foley, Kalinski, all denied having seen the boy. Steve was
perplexed. By this time the smoke cloud began to grow thinner and more
transparent. One could see fully half way across the shop. As the cloud
lifted, all became clear. The place looked as if it had been in the grip
of a cyclone, though the damage was not nearly as great as had at first
appeared.
"Who is killed?" asked Rush.
"No one, so far as I know," answered the man addressed.
"Have you seen Bob Jarvis anywhere about?"
"Don't know him. Who is he?"
"He was my partner. He was working on number eight when it blew up."
"Then you'll need a basket to gather him up," was the cheerful answer of
the mill hand. "The last time a pit exploded here we lost twelve men. We
found the pieces of them, but somehow we never were able to put them
together. The pieces wouldn't fit, nohow."
Steve turned away. The lad's face was drawn and white, partly from the
pain of his burns and partly from anxiety for Jarvis.
"Ignatz!" he called, observing the Pole darting across to the furnaces.
The lad halted sharply and glanced around to see who was calling him. He
caught Steve's eye and hurried over.
"Have you found Jarvis?"
Brodsky shook his head.
"Mister Bob not here," he said.
"He must be," protested Steve.
"Mebby Bob him run away," suggested the Pole.
"No, Ignatz; he is not that kind. He is here somewhere and something has
happened to him or we should have seen him somewhere about. He was
standing on the edge of the pit at the time it exploded."
"I see him a minute before. He put too much water on," added the boy,
with a shake of the head. "Bad, bad! Somebody tell him do that."
Rush attached no especial significance to the suggestion at the moment.
Later on, the words of the faithful Pole came back to him fraught with
meaning.
"He must have been thrown up into the air. Perhaps he is down in the pit
there buried under the slag now," said Rush, a sudden, startled
expression flashing into his eyes.
Brodsky instinctively glanced upwards.
"Look! Look!" cried the Pole, dancing up and down and pointing excitedly
up above their heads into the thin cloud of smoke that hovered over
them.
Steve looked. His heart sank within him as he did so and his head began
to whirl dizzily.