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 the furnace 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 having caught
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 who had 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.